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THE GREAT FUTURE 



OP 



AMEEICA & AFEICA. 



i 



THE GREAT FUTURE 



OF 



AMERICA AND AFRICA; 



AN ESSAY SHOWING 



Our Whole Duty to the Black Man, 



CONSISTENT WITH 



©ur ©tun Safety anh ®lorii. 



BY JACOB DEWEES, M. D. 



"The charges against me are all of one kind; that T have pushed the principles «if general justiee rvKfll 
benevolence too far— farther than a cautious polioj- would irnrrant; and farther than the opinions of masv 
would go along with me,.— hi every accident wliichmay happen through life,- 1 will call to mind this ac"- 
tusatlon and be comforted!" — bukke. 




PHILADELPHIA. 

PRIKTED FOB THH AUTHOR BY H. OllK, 

No. 100 Chestnut St. 
1B54. 



a:4^s 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by Jacob 
Dcwees, M. D. in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court, in and for 
tiae Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I.— Slavery a Dis- 
ease. 

Where shall we find a Remedy? 17 
Tho Two Doctors. Dr. Coloni- 
zation's Treatment 20 

Dr Abolition's Treatment 26 

Justice to the Master demands 

^ a Combined Practice 30 

CHAPTER II.— Slavery, if 
perpetuated, fatal to Nations. 

Teachings of the Egyjjtian Bon- 
dage of Israel, its divine Pur- 
pose 35 

Parallel between Egyptian and 
American Bondage 38 

Reason calls for the Exodus of 
the African Race 40 

What duties — what ! sacrifices 
the call demands of us 43 

What the Past says to the Fu- 
ture, if we refuse the De- 
mand 45 

The inevitable Fate of Nations 
— hftw shall we retard it? 46 

The consent of all parties ne- 
cessary to the Exodus 48 

CHAPTER in.— The Public 
Domain viewed as a Means 
for Emancipation. 

Degrading Eflects of the Mis- 
management and Misappro- 
priation of the Domain 50 



Description, History, and Ex- 
tent of the Domain 56 

Abuses and Proper Uses of the 
Domain 60 

Congress unfit to manage the 
Domain 68 

CHAPTER IV.— Plan for 

Constitutionally Removing 
the Public Lands from the 
Custody of Congress, and 
for effecting Emancipation. 

Proposal for a Convention of the 
People to consider the Sub- 
jects of Emancipation, Colo- 
nization, and the Appropria- 
tion of the Public Domain 71 

Plan of Organization for a 
Board of the Public Domain.. 72 

Appropriations to Public Works 
in Africa, to prepare for the 
Exodus 73 

Education of the Young Negro 
for Usefulness in Africa 75 

The " Redemption" System will 
aid the Exodus.. 76 

Immense Results of the Plan, in 
Civilizing and Christianizing 
Africa 77 

Proposed Appropriations for 
American Public Schools, 
which would ultimately extin- 
guish the State Debts,&c 79 

Folly of the " Free JTcmestead." 
Scheme' when contrasted with 
this Plan SO 



CONTENTS. 



Means of preventing Injury to 
the South from the loss of 
Slave Laborers during the 
Exodus, by encouraging Ame- 
rican Manufactures 80 

Necessity of prudently husband- 
ing the Proceeds of the Do- 
main, to remunerate the Mas- 
ter for the loss of the Slave... 81 

Amplitude of our Resources to 
meet all Demands, if carefully 
managed 82 

Beneficial Results of the pro- 
posed Management of the Do- 
main upon Agriculture, Com- 
merce, Currency, and Public 
Morals ; 84 

Tendency of California Gold to 
extend Slave Territory 91 

Farther Remarks on the Evil 
Tendency of the Free Home- 
stead Bill 93 

CHAPTER v.— First Duties 
of the proposed Board of the 
Public Domain, in relation to 
the Exodus. 

Preparation of Africa fo? the 
Reception of Immigrants 9t;l 

Preparation of Colored Arti- 
zans and Teachers of Religion, 
for Emigration to Africa 97 

Adaptation of African Rivers 
for public Improvements 100 

Relation of the River Niger to 
Liberia and the Nile ih. 

Vast field for Rail-roads and In- 
ternal Trade 101 

Grandeur of the Future of Afri- 
ca, if aided according to the 
proposed Plan lu5 

The Execution of the Plan 
■\vould pay in full our Debt to 
the Negro Race 10*7 

CHAPTER VI.— Our Ten- 
dency to National Decay 
through tlie Influence of 
Slavery, provi^J by the Ear- 
lier and m*»ro Recent His- 
tory of our j)f;licy. 



Active Interest of the People in 
the policy of Government, in 
Colonial Times 110 

The same Activity in Early Na- 
tional Times 117 

The Administration of John 
Adams llB 

Acquisition of Right of Entry 
on Indian Lands by Treaty., lb. 

Popular Resistance against Law, 
how met 119 

The Administration of Thomas 
Jefferson 121 

"Weakness of the Frontier ib. 

Weakness of the Government.... ib. 

The Administration of James 
Madison 122 

War with England ib. 

Project for demanding Canada 
as an Indemnity 123 

This Action discountenanced by 
Government ib. 

Apathy of the Federalists and 
general calm, but Honesty in 
management of Affairs 124 

The Administration of James 
Monroe 125 

Just Guardianship of the Public 
Lands ib. 

Early but trifling pre-emption 
Grants 125 

Prudence and Economy still 
l^redominant ib. 

First comsiderable Grants of 
Land for Public Improve- 
ments ". 128 

The St. Joseph's Purchase ib. 

The Administration of Andrew 
Jackson 129 

Reverse of the Picture ib. 

Large Purchase of Laud from 
the Indians ib. 

Loose extensions of the Right of 
Pre-emption 130 

Attempts to check mad Specu- 
lations inLands 132 

Financial Ignorance ih. 

Agricultural madness and its 
conscijuences 13.> 



€ X T B N T S. 



Apparent Prosperity %b. 

Causes of the consequent Col- 
lapse 134 

Retirement of Andrew Jackson., ih. 

Administration of Martin Van 
Burcn— he i," treads in the 
footsteps,"... 135 

Financial Crisis (b. 

Suspension of Specie Payments. 136 
False Views and False Policy.. 137 
Administration of William 
Henry Harrison, and John 
Tyler 139 

No Wisdom learned from Ex- 
perience 140 

Extravagance, Corruiition, and 
abuse of the Public Domain 
continued ; ih. 

Administration of Jas. K. Polk., 141 
The Mexican War, for the ex- 
tension of Slavery, and Spe- 
culation in State Debt ih. 

No Reformation of Abuses 143 

Presidential Usurpation 144 

Proposal to reduce the Price of 
certain unsold Lands to 
Twenty Five Cents per Acre.. 145 
Millions of Acres Squandered... 14G 
Administration of Zachary Tay- 
lor and Millard Fillmore 152 

Application of California for 

Admission into the Union ih. 

The Slave Question in full Agi- 
tation ih. 

Efforts to dissolve the Union... ih. 

The Compromise ih. 

Administration of Franklin 
Pierce 153 

The Pre-emption Laws at the 
Bottom of the disasters of the 
Country 154 

The Free Homestead Bill, the 
J longest step in the march of 
National Decay ib. 

The Inevitable consequences of 
) our present Policy, in rela. 
tion to Territory, if conti- 
nued in connexion with the 
i Permanence of Slavery 156 



CHAPTER VIL— A plain talk 
with the Fiee Man of Colour 
in the United States. 

Motives for an African Exoflus.. 168 

The Influence of the Abolition- 
ist injurious to the Slave 169 

Kindness the Law, and Cruelty 
the exception with the Slave 
Master : bu"> the Exceptions 
are such that Humanity de- 
mands Emancipation iTo 

The Establishment of an Afri- 
can Nationality essential to 
the Advancement of Freeman 
and Slave ib. 

The Abolitionists substitute 
Feeling for Reason, in Argu- 
ment and Practice ; they act 
upon Individual cases illegal- 
ly, and advocate the Imprac- 
ticable 172 

Equality impossible to the Free 
Coloured Man here — Conse- 
quences of attempting it iTs 

America has nothing to offer 
the Free Coloured Man here, 
comparable with African In- 
dependence 174 

Political Objects of the Aboli- 
tionist Agitators ib. 

The Attempt at unconditional 
Emancipation must produce 
Civil War 175 

Condition of th^ African Race 
in Civil War 176 

Possibility of a peaceful Division 
of the Union Condition of the 
Coloured Race in thatCase.... 177 

Twe distinct Races cannot exist 
together in Equality 178 

The true political Position of 
the African Race in this 
Country 179 

The Coloured American still a 
Captive African 180 

Rights of Captives 0,- 

Value of the plea of Necessity in 
excusing the forced Retention 
of aCaptive 181 

Peculiaritiei of African Capti- 



C () N T K X T -S. 



TitT, and their political Conse- 
qaences If^l 

Reasons why the Free Man of 
Colour should favour Coio- 
nization and African Na- 
tionality 184 

Reasons for Exodus, though all 
Public aid should be refused.. 186 

Climate of Africa; folly of judg- 
ing it by the health of the 
Coast ISI 

African health and difficulties 
compared with those of our 
early Colonies, fcc 191 

Effect.s of African Progress on 

^ Slavery in the United States., i^. 



Folly of depending upon 'the 
pretended political friends of 
the Negro, for political elera- 
tion here 194 

False friendship of Great Britain. 19a 

Folly of depending upon Na- 
tions or People for aid, " be- 
cause it is right." 19*7 

Is there "labor enough for all" 
in this Country? 211 

Proposed exploration of Africa 
by Free Blacks 215 

Further remarks on the errone- 
ous Policy of the Abolition- 
ists 220 

Concluding Appaals.... 222 



TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UXITED STATES. 



In recommending this Essay to your serious 
attention, I am actuated by no disrespectful mo- 
tive, though approaching you with the self-confi- 
dence of a legitimate American sovereign, address- 
ing the no less legitimate agents of the sovereign 
authority. 

That our Union has been, and still is endanger- 
ed by the great sectional question of the age, ijou 
know — that the embarrassments of that question 
have been increased by a fatal policy in relation to 
that heaviest of national trusts, the Public Dom.ain, 
i believe: — therefore, as a party directly interested 
in that trust, and familiar with its history, I feel 
bound, in justice to myself, my country, and the 
heirs of her greatness, to object to the manner in 
which it has been administered by you. The 
grounds of my objections, and my idea of the mode 
in which the trust may be made conducive to our 
national glory and prosperity, to the removal of the 
greatest evil which threatens our future, and to the 
present and peraianent happiness of more races 
than one — are developed in the following pages, 
which to you are hereby 

Respectfully dedicated 

By your constituent and fellow citizen, 
THE AUTHOR. 

Upper Merion, Mcntgomerr County, Pa., Mar. 18-51. 



PREFACE. 



The following pages are addressed alike to ttie 
American of the white race, and the free Negro of 
the United States. They embrace the outline of 
an extensive system of reform, including the ulti- 
mate emancipation of the entire African race; not 
by the slow process of colonization, by a private 
society with slender means; nor by the headlong 
policy of "abolition," which asks of the master sa- 
crifices that never will be — never can be made. 
This system includes also the permanent and effec- 
tual establishment of common schools, with ample 
provision for their maintenance; and it provides in- 
cidentally for the gradual extinguishment of the 
debts of those states which are now burdened with 
such responsibilities, and for many other public 
facilities to all the states, without undue or inequit- 
able advantage to any of them. Nor, in effecting 
these desirable purposes, does it propose any un- 
constitutional or anti-American proceeding. 

The reader will be startled, perhaps, at the vast- 
ness of such a scheme. Probably, he may exclaim, 



14 PREFACE 

" where shall we find the means for such an incal- 
culably expensive project?" The author is liable 
to all the errors inseparable from human judgment 
— he may be liable to the misleadings of enthusi- 
asm; but — read and decide! He cannot plead igno- 
rance of the problem which he has undertaken to 
discuss, in excuse for his mistakes; for, he has not 
attempted to wander beyond the field in which he 
has grown gray in observation and reflection. Un- 
less, then, he has been strangely deceived by his 
wishes, the reader will rise from the perusal of 
these pages, convinced that our beloved country 
holds at her command wealth amply sufficient to 
accomplish all these ends, as rapidly as their ac- 
complishment is desirable, — and this without jar- 
ring the finances, or imposing fresh burdens on the 
public. Nay more! He sincerely believes that the 
system of appropriation herein recommended sup- 
plies the only hope of checking the current of 
public corruption, and also much of the private and 
petty looseness of morals by which both govern- 
ment and society have been advanced in degrada- 
tion within the last twenty years. 

The mere attempt to secure such blessings for 
his fellow citizens, requires no apology from the 
author; he feels that it, also, confers upon him the 
right to expect a careful examination of his views, 



PREFACE 13 

before even iheij are condemned — and he asks no 
more. 

To the free raan of color he would say> that, in 
the final chapter, which is especially addressed to 
him, there will be found no flattery, but ample 
kindness. It is very rarely that persons of this 
class receive direct attention from those who dis- 
cuss their interests and their well-being. It may be 
invidious to attribute this fact to the real indiffer- 
ence of pretended friendship, where nothinc^is to be 
gained personally by the seeming philanthropist; 
but, the fear of hostility should not lead us to the 
concealment of truth. In the picture of the hope- 
lessness of the political condition of the African 
race with us, and the bright future of Africa, this 
treatise offers to that race the only advice that can 
prove truly and practically useful to it; and the 
author has no hesitation in urging the genuine phi- 
lanthropist to press the consideration of this advice 
upon the down-trodden people who wear 

"Tli3 sha'ir.n-ed liroi'r of the buruislioJ sun," 



OUR WHOLE DUTY TO THE BLACK MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

SLAVERY A DISEASE. 

Allegorical Account of the past Treatment of Slavery — Its Treatment 
by the Colonizationists, and by the Abolitionists — Both have neglected 
the Magnitude of the Evil, and the Question of Justice to the Master 
in the Remedy — A combined Treatment necessary. 

What is to be done with Slavery in the United 
States? This is a question which urges itself 
upon every inquiring and reflecting mind, when 
we observe, for the last few years, with the assem- 
bling of each Congress, the whole nation convulsed 
in contending on the one hand for, and on the other 
against, some new principle applicable to Slavery. 
Moreover, the mind of individuals, of nations, and 
indeed of the whole Christian community is aroused, 
and full of inquiry into the subject of African 
Slavery, especially as it exists in the United States. 

This inquiry, in itself, naturally suggests the 
question, why is it that Slavery, especially chattel 
slavery, exists at all? The causes are numerous, 
B (17) 



18 OURWIIOLEDUTY 

but the most prominent of those which have led to 
its estabhshment in the United States are, the love 
of power which one nation desires to exercise over 
another, with a view to wealth regardless of the 
means, and a licentious indulgence of human pas- 
sions, to secure national wealth and individual 
idleness. 

In each and every cause conducing to chattel 
slavery and its continuance, you will find con- 
cealed the germ of an evil, which, in its full 
development, destroys the glory of nations. But 
these causes have been so thoroughly examined, 
and are so fully understood, that little remains 
to be said upon the subject ; nor do I desire to do 
so. My object is, to point out the mode of practically 
adapting means to the accomplishment of emancipa- 
tion in the United States. With this view, I shall 
be obliged to speak, first, of what has been done ; 
and secondly, what yet remains to be done, when- 
ever it shall become the desire of the nation to 
render justice to the African. And when speaking 
of what ought to be done in order that the means 
may be made sufiicient to the purposed end, I feel 
I am treading upon the borders of a field which has 
not yet been cultivated b}^ the people with sufficient 
zeal and care to produce a profitable harvest ; a field 
upon which so few of the advocates of African 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 19 

emancipation have entered, in order to show the 
"world its length and breadth, its resources, its fer- 
tility of soil and its capacity of being cultivated, 
that I fear I shall be traversing a country little 
known, its value little understood, and, perhaps, 
little cared for, though capable of contributing 
immensely to the advantage of both master and 
slave. To the development of the vast promise of 
this region my efforts shall be directed. 

Nearly all that has yet been attempted with a 
view to the entire emancipation of slaves in the 
United States, has been done by the " Colonization " 
and "Abolition" societies; the one society looking 
forward to the time when, through its means, ulti- 
mate emancipation shall be consummated — the other, 
claiming to emancipate at once and unconditionally, 
upon the abstract principle of right to the slave. If 
this latter Society would inoXn^Q justice to the master 
in its theories, then, in point of feeling, little diffe- 
rence would exist between them. 

But whatever may be the opinions, sentiments, 
and rules of conduct on the part of these societies, 
all thinking men admit that slavery, as it exists 
amongst us, is a disease of the most fearful character, 
in its consequences upon the body politic ; that it is 
an excrescence of vast mamitude, tending: to react 
upon, and debilitate the whole body in such a way 



20 OURWHOLEDUTY 

as to produce an unhealthy action throughout the 
entire system. The symptoms of the disease which 
this excrescence has ah'eady produced, are not to be 
mistaken ; they are of a convulsive character. The 
excrescence has taken deep root, and is of long stand- 
ing; and although measures to check the further 
growth of the tumour have been in part successful, 
the many attempts which have been made to destroy 
it seem never to have had the desired effect, but, on 
the contrary, whenever a cure has been talked of 
and attempted, the symptoms have invariably tended 
towards " convulsion." 

To cure this evil, two physicians presented them- 
selves. Both have tried their skill, and neither has 
yet given up the patient. 

The first, recommended that such remedies should 
be applied as would cause portions of the protube- 
rance to drop off, from time to time, and create as 
little irritability in the nerves of the patient as pos- 
sible; and the employment of means promising such 
results met the approbation of many of the best friends 
of the patient. The remedies, too, seemed to be 
such as common sense and correct reasoning would 
dictate ; but the cure has not been effected by these 
means. Yet many, very many of the most ardent 
admirers of the sufferer, won even to an untiring 
attachment by his solid virtues, still believe that the 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 21 

removing of the excrescence by mild remedies, such 
as tend gradually to reduce the size of the protube- 
rance, without the loss of blood or a violent agitation 
of the system, constitutes the only proper plan of 
cure. They are, moreover, fully possessed of the 
belief that, if something effective is not speedily 
done to eradicate the tumour and allay the irrita- 
bility of the patient, his constitution will be fatally 
undermined at no distant day. This doctor has the 
fullest confidence that his remedies, given in doses 
large enough to produce the desired effect, would 
complete the cure; but he complains that the medi- 
cine is of the most costly character ; that, thus far, 
he has been at the entire expense of providing it ; 
that he has borne this expense in consequence of his 
regard and high respect for the patient, and that he 
could desire nothing more than that he should enjoy 
a long life and happy old age. But, for all this, the 
patient does not look smilingly on the means of cure. 
He will not even acknowledge that one of the 
remedies upon which the doctor piques himself very 
much, as having been the means of great relief, is 
really a good remedy ; being fearful, perhaps, that if 
he should acknowledge its excellent and beneficial 
influence, he would be called upon to purchase 
largely of the costly article. Now in this, I think 
Uncle Samuel — I may as well name him, for no 



22 OURWHOLEDUTT 

doubt you, reader, have a great regard for him — 
behaves much hke the miser who would rather 
suffer a consuming disease to prey upon his very 
vitals, than be at the expense of a dose of medicine, 
but never fails to swallow such medicines as are 
supplied gratuitously by his friends. 

But this manifestation on the part of the old 
gentleman is somewhat strange ; for he is rich, and 
can hardly be said to be miserly, as he spends money 
in vast sums for all necessary purjDOses. Indeed, in 
anything that seems to improve his condition, he 
never appears backward. He has one very bad 
fault, however, which is, that in all that relates to 
his health or the management of his estate, he has 
a too willing ear for the quack in medicine and the 
demagogue in politics ; consequently he is often the 
victim of deceit in his undertakings. For example ; 
not very long ago, he was persuaded that one of his 
neighbours had a very valuable farm adjoining his 
own; that he ought to purchase it, and that he 
could do so to the great advantage of his whole 
familj", especially as his neighbour owed him a 
considerable sum of money. But it so turned out 
that his neighbour was not very willing to sell. He 
was then advised to give him a few kicks and cuffs, 
and threaten to drive him off his fiirm altogether ; 
upon which no doubly he would be able to purchase. 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 23 

Well, he followed this advice. He broke the peace, 
and gave his neighbour a most awful drubbing. 
This drubbing cost him a round sum of money. He 
had also to buy the land at full price afterwards ; 
yet, and as soon as the purchase was made, these 
same persons who persuaded him to do a thing 
not calculated to elevate his character for noble 
deeds, turned right upon him, and advised him to 
give away all the lands thus purchased, and all such 
besides as might be in his possession and unoccupied, 
in other places, in parcels of one hundred and sixty 
acres, to any and everybody who might choose to take 
them as a gift, whether such persons should have 
contributed much, or little, or nothing, to the acqui- 
sition of these lands ! The good that would result 
from this advice was not easily to be understood — 
the evil connected with it seemed palpable. That 
such a measure should be expected to result in good, 
seemed to be in direct opposition to all the dictates 
of political economy, and in violation of all expe- 
rience in the management of individual estates. 
That such a measure would incapacitate the old 
gentleman from carrying forward to a successful 
issue any large project of philanthropy, in relation 
to education or anything else, in improving his 
estate by new roads, or, indeed, in effecting improve- 
ments of any kind — scarcely admits of a doubt. 



g| OURWHOLEDUTY 

That a like policy would ruin an individual, and 
render every member of his family beggars, is most 
certain. Uncle Samuel understood, too, that wher- 
ever land ranged at the highest prices, there was the 
the most industry observable, and there was the 
enjoyment of the most liberal distribution of com- 
forts. So he could not be persuaded to give away 
his lands. But unfortunately, just at this time, it 
was discovered that his new purchase contained a 
vast amount of gold! And then, without asking 
Uncle Samuel, " Will you give me the land or not T 
away these people ran from all parts of the world, 
China and all, and, taking the land without money 
and without price, began to dig gold. Now the 
worst feature in all this lawlessness is, that when 
the old gentleman sent his strong men to whip his 
neighbour into selling part of his farm, he absolutely 
weakened himself, both morally and physically, so 
much, that he was powerless in defence of his own 
property ! Had he made an honourable purchase, 
he could have controlled his property by the same 
force with which he subdued his neighbour; by 
which means he could have maintained his lawful 
authority and his just rights. 

Here we find a source of the deepest regret. 
Under this dejoredation upon his rights, he loses, 
lir.st, all claim to high moral conduct, and, secondly, 



TO THE BLACK MAN". 25 

lie also loses the very means required to purchase 
the expensive remedy already referred to, without 
which his life will probably be sacrificed; which 
means might be abundantly procured from his newly- 
purchased acres. 

Leaving our allegory for the moment, it is plain 
that a reasonable rent for the California gold mines 
would secure a revenue that would colonize every 
African in the United States in the course of one 
hundred years. Nor ought the entire emancipation 
of the slave to be consummated in less time, if we 
would give to him the largest advantages which 
emancipation is capable of rendering him. 

But, (to resume our parable,) when Uncle Samuel 
has shown himself on the one hand entirely regard- 
less of the means of cure applicable to his case, and, 
on the other, has displayed an utter recklessness of 
conduct by not refraining from such practices as are 
calculated to spread the disease more widely, how 
can we believe that he is sincere in his avowed fears 
that the disease will prove fatal to him in mind and 
body ? Yet it is certain, and he knows it as well as 
any one, that this disease never 3^et failed to destroy 
those upon whom it laid its festering fangs, body 
and soul ! It has been seen, too, that the old gen- 
tleman has a hankering after the estates of his 
neighbours, and as he grows more prodigal in his 



26 OURWnOLEDUTT 

expenses andimmoi'al in his ijractlces,\iQ seems to 
entertain less fear of the disease than he did in his 
youth, and still refuses to spend money in medicine ; 
so that the first doctor is quite out of patience a^ 
well as purse. 

Another set of friends, who advocate a different 
medical school, being determined that he should not 
die by obstinacy, forced upon him the attendance of 
another physician, who called himself Abolition, 
and who loved Uncle Samuel as much as did Coloni- 
zation ; but he was more ardent in his feelings, and 
pronounced the continuance of the disease death to 
the patient, and said that the longer it continued, 
the more difficult would be the cure; that every- 
thing that had been done thus far had been of no 
use ; that the disease was daily growing worse ; that 
even the remedies which he once thought were cal- 
culated to do good, he was now convinced were all 
pernicious in character, and oppressive and demoral- 
izing in effect. With the same confident boldness, 
he asserted that the disease was gangrenous, and that 
nothing short of immediate extirpation would save 
the patient's life. 

To this course of practice the old gentleman de- 
murred. He was fearful that the removing of the 
disease at one single operation would kill him ; and, 
in this opinion, he had some of his best tried friends 



^ 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 27 

to agree with him. He gave, as further reasons why 
the operation should not be performed, that he had 
inherited the disease ; that it had now become 
constitutional with him; that although he should 
submit to the operation of having the gangrenous 
part of the excrescence removed, he was fearful the 
disease would break out in sores upon other parts 
of the body, and that the remedy proposed, would, 
after all, prove to be ineffectual. The doctor then 
contended that, if extirpation was not allowed, it 
would be absolutely necessary to use such means as 
would tend to prevent the disease from spreading, 
and that it often happened, especially in diseases of 
the slcin, that the application of a blister plaster 
upon parts of the body where the skin was yet 
sound, but predisposed to the disease, would prevent 
the malady from extending itself over the whole 
body. This remedy, he thought would, in all pro- 
bability, also prevent this gangrenous sore, although 
deep-rooted, from enlarging itself in its malignant 
proportions. At all events, he declared that there 
could be no very serious harm in trying it -, for that, 
in the youth of the patient, this disease showed 
itself with all its malignant symptoms in dark qjots 
over the whole body, and, in consequence, a large 
plaster was applied over more than one-half the 
surface, black spots and all. By this application. 



28 OURWHOLEDUTT 

he said, the disease was prevented from extending 
itself over the parts to which the remedy was 
applied ; yet he was sorry to acknowledge that this 
remedy did not effect a complete cure, and bring 
ease and comfort to the black spots ; that, in them, 
the evils of the disease still continued, and that the 
pains and sufferings which those spots still manifest, 
are such that even the parts where " the blister 
drew," cannot be said to be entirely healed. But, 
as the sore had become gangrenous upon those por- 
tions of the body to which the application had never 
been made, he held it right and proper to employ it 
there', in order to prevent the disease from spreading 
over parts where the skin had ahvays been sound. 
But being not exactly clear in his own mind that 
the remedy he proposed would have the desired 
effect, he candidly stated that only a few years 
before his brother Colonization took charge of the 
case, a remedy similar to the one he was now pro- 
posing had been again tried; but the blister was 
not fairly drawn before the symptoms of convulsion 
in the patient grew so strong, that a large portion 
of the plaster was cut off, and it was not allowed to 
extend beyond a certain line upon the bod}^ This 
had the eflect of allaying the irritability of the 
patient. Yet tliat the remedy Avas a good one, he 
had not the least doubt ; for, so far as the plaster 



TOTIIEBLACKMAN. 29 

was allowed to take effect, there was no appearance 
of these black spots in a malignant form ; and rather 
than not try the remedy, he would apply it if he 
was sure that it would convulse the whole body of 
the patient, even to dissolution! He made the 
application, and it had the effect of producing con- 
vulsions throughout the whole system ; so much so, 
that fears began to be entertained upon all sides, that 
the constitution of Uncle Samuel would give way 
under the operation. The doctor was then com- 
pelled to yield to the solicitations of many of the 
old gentleman's old advisers — who were men that 
believed he had a constitution so strong and 
so well balanced for the attainment of good health, 
that it would naturally throw off, in time, the scro- 
fulous disease inherited from his ancestors. The 
doctor had to submit to the compromise. But he 
did not do it gracefully, or with a good will. He still 
says that he cannot be mistaken in the prognostics 
of the disease, and that he will continue from time 
to time to apply the proper remedy, although the 
patient should die under the operation. Thus far, 
however, his efforts seem to tend towards an aggra- 
vation of the disease upon those parts of the body 
where the sore is most deeply rooted. This sore 
has in many instances assumed a most inflammatory 
character ; it has become more poinful in itself; it 



30 OURWHOLEDUTY 

festers, and throws off a vast quantity of frothy 
matter ; it requires more bandaging to keep it within 
its old limits. Even the pressure of the bandages 
aggravate the disease. It cannot be said that the 
abolition doctor has accomplished much by the 
application of any of his remedies. Yet I think it 
must be allowed that he has effected much more by 
his assiduous inquiries into the nature of the disease, 
and that he is not unreasonable in his opinion, 
that the death of the patient is inevitable if the 
disease be not cured. He has brought all right- 
minded men to a full conviction that he is correct in 
his jprognostlcs, though he is w^rong in his remedies ! 

The theory that aims at the true means of eman- 
cipation in the United States, must comhiiie justice to 
tlie master with freedom to the slave. Such is the 
decided conclusion of men who have not as yet 
actively espoused the opinion of either of these 
doctors, for the reason that the one does not aim 
directly at emancipation, and that the other denies 
justice to the master. A combination of the views 
of these two societies might be made to place in our 
possession vastly more efficient means for carrying 
out the great work of redeeming from bondage the 
African in the United States. Many staunch friends 
of the country sincerely desire to see it healed of all 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 31 

gangrenous sores ; and if they could, by imparting 
of their own means, effect a perfect cure, they 
would do so. 

Although the Government displays a strange 
miserliness in not aiding so desirable a purpose, yet 
it will squander upon objects of little worth oceans 
of wealth, which, if applied in the right direction, 
would effectually secure the nation from the per- 
petuation of the terrible curse of slavery, and thus 
insure peace, safety, and prosperity at home, and 
honour and high distinction abroad. 

The country is full of patriotic and enlightened 
men, who do not hesitate liberally to apply their pri- 
vate means to any grave purpose of national import- 
ance. With them must be classed a large proportion 
of the prominent and active members of both the 
Colonization and the Abolition societies, who, 
undiscouraged by the coldness of the Government 
and the passions of the sections, still labour with 
equal energy to rid the United States of the most 
threatening embarrassment to its march of unex- 
ampled prosperity, and (as I am bound to believe,) 
with equal honesty of purpose. But unfortunately, 
instead of uniting their energies in one common 
effort with each other, and with those of their fellow 
citizens who feel, and would make any sacrifice to 
remove this curse — instead of bringing their com- 



6Z OURWHOLEDUTY 

bined influence to bear upon the national authori- 
ties, in order to arouse them to their duties, these 
societies have been unhajDpily placed in antagonistic 
positions. The solution of the vexed problem of 
African slavery in America lies with neither the 
one, nor the other. It demands a union of the prin- 
ciples of both, and a conjoint effort between them, 
the people, and the rulers. This, and this only, can 
give a rational hope that the plague spots may be 
removed from the bosom of the country — that jus- 
tice may be rendered alike to master and slave, to 
the white race and the black — that the future 
Africa may look back to the sufferings of her chil- 
dren in this land of liberty as a blessing, and to 
American Slavery as the mother of African Liberty 
and Civilization ! 

Such I believe to be the only practical mode for 
the accomplishment of a purpose fraught with the 
most magnificent consequences to the national glory 
and honour ; and, to develop the plan, and point out 
the proper direction of this joint effort, is the pur- 
pose which I have humbly, but hopefully undertaken 
in the production of these pages. 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 33 



CHAPTER II. 

SLAVERY, IF PERPETUATED, FATAL TO A NATION. 

The Divine intention of Slavery — Parallel between Egyptian and Ameri- 
can bondage — Reason demands the Exodus of the African Race — What 
the Past says to the Future, if we refuse the Demand — How we may 
retard the inevitable fate of Nations — The consent of all parties inte- 
rested necessary to the Exodus. 

That it is the object of Colonization to elevate 
the free negro to a social standing, where he can 
appreciate and enjoy the blessings of freedom, I 
think cannot readily be denied ; nor will any one 
have a doubt of the humanity of the scheme. Yet 
no one has presented or proposed a plan which shall 
embrace the means necessary to secure the political 
and social freedom of the slave, and which shall 
promise a definite period of time, however remote, 
when emancipation in the United States shall be 
consummated upon the broadest base of charity, 
philanthropy, and justice. To this end it is my 
desire to direct my feeble efforts. If I may be 
permitted to set the wedge that more powerful arms 
than mine shall drive home to the riving of the log 
of slavery, this is all I ask ; for, in so good a cause, to 
C 



34 U R AV II L E D U T Y 

be even allowed to hold the wedge in the right place 
— in the right end of the log — while others per- 
form the more important part of the duty, is an 
honour I should be proud of. To point out the 
proper application of means to the end in this great 
work, would be glory enough for one life, and I 
might proceed, without any further remarks, to the 
elucidation of the subject ; but, before doing so, it 
will be right to examine into some of the reasons 
why we ought to employ every means in our power, 
whether public or private, or both combined, in the 
accomplishment of emancipation. The reasons 
which would probably press upon us with the most 
force, might be deduced from studying the calamities 
brought upon some of the other nations of the 
earth, both ancient and modern, which have stood 
in close relation with slavery. By looking at this 
subject through the experience of these nations, we 
might perceive, not only our own position and pro- 
bable fate, but also the right direction of the line 
of duty, in securing safety and happiness for our- 
selves. In seeking for this line by the light of his- 
toric experience, it is not my intention at present 
to allude to more than a single example, in proof 
of the fact that slavery is an evil which ought to be 
avoided or abolished, in order to avert the calami- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 35 

ties which have been, and ever must continue, 
inseparably connected with it. 

In whatever hght, for example, we may view the 
bondage of the house of Jacob, either in a political, 
moral, or religious sense, one thing is certain, that 
the mighty hand of God was in it from the begin- 
ning, doubtless for the working out the good of 
mankind upon earth, to the latest generations, pro- 
vided the great lessons taught in these events should 
be regarded in their true light by the species. How- 
ever mysterious it may seem, that the buying of a 
single man into slavery should bring about, in the 
course of time, and by a long series of natural and 
political sequences, a vengeance, through the imme- 
diate agency and expressed will of the almighty 
God, more terrific and appalling than any other 
event in the history of the world, yet this is a 
historical fact; and, however incomprehensible it 
may seem to be from the beginning, the connection 
of the Israelite with the Egyptian, is, nevertheless, 
recorded in the book which also lays down the law 
of man's duty to God ; a book which, from that day 
to this, has been held sacred in the hands of a God- 
loving and God-abiding people, as prescribing the 
right rule of conduct towards both the Creator and 
his creatures. 

But the events which led to the final catastrophe 



36 OURWHOLEDUTY 

of Egypt, were such that they at once appeal to the 
comprehensive power of human reason, which has 
been rendered by the Creator fully competent to 
fathom the immutable laws of cause and effect — 
laws bearing alike, and without change, upon all 
questions throughout the whole moral and physical 
world. Man, being endowed with an intellect which 
excites him to the divination of cause and effect, 
he may analyse seeming mysteries, and aim at the 
comprehension of the workings of thq universe ; 
and he has power to understand all things affecting 
himself or his interests, for good or for evil. If he 
err, the only apology which he can make for his 
errors will be found in the culpable prostitution of 
his high endowments. Such an apology is but an 
acknowledgment of wrong. 

Once comprehending and acknowledging the great 
truth, that a combination of like circumstances will 
produce absolutely and invariably the like effects, 
then will human reason read the full meaning of 
Israelitic bondage and Egyptian calamitj^ as a 
monument reared by God himself, upon which is 
inscribed the rule of conduct for nations and indi- 
viduals; pointing for good in one direction, and 
towards evil consequences in the other. The 
oppressor never escapes the punishment of his 
oi^pression, nor can benevolence fail to receive the re- 



TOTIIEBLACKMAN. 37 

ward of its well-doing; though God employs both 
for his own wise purposes. 

Human reason, then, in all cases in which results 
are to be divined, erects for itself some standard or 
law by which it can establish, after making due 
allowance for variation of circumstances, the proper 
conclusion or prophetic anticipation, in relation to 
the truth or fact at which it aims. Hence, in pre- 
judging the necessary results of American slavery, 
we should at once compare it with the causes and 
circumstances by which the institution has been 
surrounded, in other times and other places, in order 
to arrive at the effects it must inevitably produce 
hereafter upon both master and slave. Thus, taking 
Egyptian bondage as a test of slavery, or as a guide 
to the results of slavery in other places, and, in 
order to arrive at just and truthful conclusions, we 
note the prominent facts in relation to it, such as 
these — Joseph was sold into bondage by his brethren ; 
Joseph, as a slave, performs good service for his 
masters, and renders to the Egyptians services by 
which their wealth and comforts are vastly increased 
above those of the surrounding nations. In the 
course of time, Joseph's kindred come into Egypt 
also ; they partake of the vast advantages of which 
the Egyptians are in possession, and remain in the 
country about four hundred years, all the while 



338> OURWHOLEDUTY 

improving their condition for the great work to 
which, as a people, they were appointed. The 
Egyptians, upon the other hand, were made to 
prosper and grow rich, by the benefits they derived 
from the labour of the bondmen, who, from the* 
beginning, advanced rapidly in civilization. With 
the rapid increase of the numbers of the bondmen, 
increased the exactions of their masters, in support 
of idleness, vicious habits, and licentious indulgences, 
until a separation of master and bondmen took 
place, bringing with it unspeakable calamities. Here 
then we have an array of circumstances, all tending 
to a final separation of master and slave. And if 
we could find a combination of precisely like cir- 
cumstances in another place, we should be at no loss 
in judging of the result. 

Should Egypt, however, be raised as a standard 
by which you would ascertain the probable results 
of slavery in this or any other country, you would 
necessarily compare circumstances, and allow for all 
the modifications, as they should appear more or less 
aggravating in character. 

Thus, when we inquire into the subject of slavery 
in our own land, we find that the slave brought into 
this country was bought from his brother ; that he 
rendered himself useful here, to enrich his master; 
that ho laboured here to secure his comforts j that 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 39 

his labours were valuable to such an extent, that 
his brother was hunted down like a wild beast, upon 
the soil of his birth, made captive, and brought here 
to enrich the master. This is an aggravated circum- 
stance compared with anything that occurred in 
Egypt. He has remained here more than two hun- 
dred years ; he has increased, by his labour, the 
wealth of the nation ; with the increase of his num- 
bers, and the amount of his labour, increases the 
desire of the nation to make a display of wealth, 
and riot in the indulgence of idleness, vice, and 
licentiousness ; and with this desire, like the Egyp- 
tians, we exact the full toll of " brick without straw;" 
nor do we relax in the oppression under which his 
voice is daily raised on high, calling aloud for a 
release from bondage. Comparisons are said to be 
odious, but if we can proceed one step further, and 
believe that this nation is called upon to release the 
African from bondage, with as loud a voice as Moses 
called upon Pharaoh to let his people depart to their 
own land — if we can believe that they have been 
allowed to sojourn here for their improvement and 
their own good, so as to enable them to redeem their 
own nation from depravity; and if we shall still 
refuse to make any return for the services they have 
rendered us — then it alone remains for human 



4® OUR WHOLE DUTY 

reason to draw the conclusion. The result will not 
ajopear to be miraculous. 

Human reason ought to teach wisdom. So it does. 
Errors grow out of a wilful disregard of our own 
experience, and the experience of others. That 
course of conduct which lowers self-respect, and 
injures others, is never maintained and persisted in, 
except from some slavish habit of indulgence that 
cannot be laid aside without a sacrifice. And if 
persisted in, such habits grow more pernicious daily. 
The end is utter depravity and a premature death. 
Youth aims at good ; age too often becomes depraved, 
and cherishes depravity with all its pernicious influ- 
ences, for the gratification of self. The child never 
intentionally practices that which is hurtful to itself, 
but avoids it. Thus, from the moment its intellect 
begins to be developed, it judges and reasons from 
the circumstances which surround it, for good or 
harm to itself; it learns to love its mother, and all 
who minister to its comforts, for the good it expe- 
riences from them. In all things which give it pain, 
it immediately reasons upon effect; and whilst it 
cherishes good, it avoids evil, upon the innate prin- 
ciple of self-preservation. That which is of the 
most service to it is, that it profits by experience, 
which mature age often refuses to do. Thus the 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 41 

teachings of babes are worthy to be imitated by men 
— by nations. 

What was it that induced our patriotic sires to 
estabhsh a representative form of government, except 
to avoid the evils which follow in the train of 
despotism ? Some of those evils they experienced 
in themselves, and no higher wisdom than that of 
the child led them to avoid these in the future. 
Besides, they had the teachings of history ; and in 
their wisdom they profited by these teachings. Nor 
was this all : they made sacrifices of all their com- 
forts to attain the highest good for their country, 
to which they pledged life, fortune, and honour! 
History cannot point to another and so glorious an 
example of self-denial. The nations of the future 
may profit by it, if they are wise. But, to such as 
are incapable of denying themselves pernicious 
gratifications, the example will be of no avail, be- 
cause such sacrifices lie at the root of the example. 
To the attainment of a highly useful, moral, and 
honourable standing, the line of conduct for an 
individual is plainly laid down in the story of our 
founders. Nor is this line of conduct less strongly 
marked for a nation. 

The great men of the revolution, of whom we 
are so proud, raised a new standard for the govern- 
ment of a people. Not without an effort — not 



42 OURWIIOLEDUTY 

without hope. The hopes were for good, because 
they determmed in themselves to sacrifice the power 
which oppressed them from abroad. By their 
efforts, they had to contend against a determined 
foreign foe, and the folly, ignorance, and selfishness 
of too many at home. But, whatever the sacrifices 
or efforts they may have made, their success elevated 
them to a point in the temple of fame, where they 
receive the award of having achieved the highest 
deeds for humanity. Their history commences a 
new era in the history of nations. Shall we forget 
that we are the sons of those self-sacrificing patriots ? 
Shall we be satisfied with the light their glory 
throws around us, when we too are privileged to 
make sacrifices, and when humanity pleads as 
strongly in favour of the oppressed with us as it did 
with our patriotic progenitors ? Shall we forget ; 
I say, shall we forget that we are the sons of such 
sires ? " Honour thy father and thy mother, that 
thy days may be long in the land which the Lord 
thy God giveth thee." 

If we have received good things from our ances- 
tors, and they are glorified in having obtained them 
for us, how much will their glory and our own be 
enhanced by showing to the world that we know 
how to use them ! Let us make the sacrifice which 
we are called upon to make, in the emancipation of 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 43 

the African race within the United States, and we 
shall be raised in the temple of fame to a level with 
our ancestors. It will be seen that the son was not 
unmindful of the teacliings and example set by the 
father. 

What are the sacrifices we shall have to make ? 
Not that of money ! I think I can show that eman- 
cipating the slave and colonizing Africa will make 
us richer ; as all good works will enhance the riches 
of an individual. The sacrifices we shall be called 
upon to make will be in things which lead to a mis- 
application of wealth, in a manner tending to licen- 
tious and vicious habits. To guard against such 
tendencies will always be profitable for a nation. 

Is the bondage of Africa in this our favoured land 
less burdensome than was that in Egypt ? No ! 
More bearable in any respect ? No ! On the con- 
trary, it is of a more aggravated character — sever- 
ing the closest ties of nature — producing a degree 
of lamentation that doubtless raises its voice as high 
as the heavens. Has not the Colonization Society, 
like Moses in Egypt, supplicated for a return of the 
children of Africa to their own land ? And have 
we not hardened our hearts against this appeal? 
And are we not, like Pharaoh, rioting in wealth, and 
luxury, and licentiousness, by means of the labour 
of the African, whose " life is made bitter with hard 



44 OURWHOLEDUTT 

bondage?" The Egyptians had secured wealth 
sufficient from the labour of the bondman, to have 
sent him to a land which was, to him, a land of 
promise. So have we wealth by millions, secured to 
us by the labour of the bondman, all sufficient to 
send him home. But here let the parallel stop : to 
carry it further would be to encounter the wrath of 
the Almighty, to avert which, let us, with one heart 
and one mind, do what our reason teaches us it 
would be right to do, and dispose of a little of that 
wealth which is now squandered in the promotion 
of idleness, and too often used in securing vicious 
indulgences, by an appropriation of a part of it for 
the purpose of sending the Negro home to the land 
of his fathers. 

The history of every nation upon earth which 
has indulged slavery in its worst forms, is written 
nearly in the same language, and in one or two sen- 
tences : — their rise in wealth and luxury — their 
progress in licentiousness — and their utter desola- 
tion ; their whole course only marked by a variety 
of circumstances, all alike tending to a dishonour- 
able grave. Permit us to hope that the United 
States will not only avoid this rock of slavery, upon 
which she may be wrecked, but all other causes 
which have strong tendencies to subvert empires. 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 45 

Who can doubt her destiny, if her high mission is 
controlled by principle ? 

That nations, like individuals, are in strict account- 
ability to the laws of God, will not be denied. Nor 
is it necessary or germain to my purpose to cite the 
many occurrences which have transpired in the 
downfall and utter desolation of nations, since the 
days of Egypt, to sustain the position. I claim that 
a maintenance of sobriety, honesty, justice, human- 
ity, and economy are as necessary to the character 
of a nation, as the same virtues are to the honour- 
able standing of an individual. 

The rise and fall of nations, from the days of 
Egypt down to the present time, are full of instruc- 
tion to us. These changes, regulated by the immut- 
able laws of cause and effect, indicate for us the 
right and straight way wherein we must move, if 
we would secure to ourselves the power to maintain 
in pristine vigour the full benefit of our institutions, 
and to our posterity, upon each succeeding anniver- 
sary of our independence, the power to proclaim to 
all nations of the earth, that man is capable of self- 
government. 

Our theory leaves the individual conscience free 
to choose the right and eschew the wrong, according 
to the spirit of Christianity. In a system founded 
upon such a principle, universal good must prevail j 



^6 OURWHOLEDUTY 

for, where the citizen is sovereign in all things, and 
where equal rights are really secured to all, the 
highest order of human government is attained. 
But, let the poison of legislative inconsistency de- 
form this system — let equality of rights be trampled 
under foot in relation to either race or caste — and 
history teaches another lesson. The worm is then 
in the bud, and the fruit must wither. The hand- 
writing is on the wall, in characters so bold, that 
none but the blind, the infatuated, the reckless, can 
fail to perceive the finger of prophecy, tracing on 
the sands of time the horrible phantom of desolar 
tion, brooding over the grave of power and the 
ruins of glory. To profit by the experience of na- 
tions, is the part of humanity, justice, and common 
sense. To shun the evils inevitably resulting from 
profligacy, idleness, and licentious debauchery — the 
back-blow of the oppressed against the oppressor — 
is no more the duty of the wise and patriotic, the 
shrewd and cautious, than a natural prompting of 
the instinct of self-preservation. 

In relation to slavery, there is no period of time 
in the world's history from which more light can be 
elicited than the period of the Israelitic captivity; 
and many of the chief features and consequences 
of this peculiar example of bondage will apply with 
startling force to this evil as it now exists in the 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 47 

United States. That God will assuredly raise a 
mighty hand for the delivery of the oppressed, now 
as then; that he will as assuredly punish now as 
then, the human power that resists his will, when, 
with the scales of justice in his hand, he thunders 
from the mercy-seat, " Give freedom to the slave ;" 
that the exodus will follow the genesis, in this great 
work, and that both are parcels of his one great plan, 
he that denies is mad. Shall we obey his fiat peace- 
ably while we may ? or shall w^e pursue the pillar 
of cloud and pillar of flame, to the great red sea of 
our destiny ? 

That distinct races of men cannot inhabit the 
same country upon equal terms, and that the violent 
separation of master and slave carries with it evils 
of the most terrifying character, are facts which 
American experience distinctly proves. May we, 
with anxious solicitude, implore a wise and most 
merciful God, who has vouchsafed to us so many 
blessings, and given us such abundant cause for 
thankfulness, that he may guide us in the right way 
— a way in which we cannot err — so that we may 
provide the means for the release of the bondman 
from captivity. And if we should fail, as a nation, 
to do all that is in our power for this great end, may 
He still, in the continuance of this mercy, avert 



1*8- ' OUR WHOLE DUTY 

from us evils of sucli magnitude as despoiled and 
inundated Egypt; such evils as have connected 
themselves with the downfall of every other nation 
upon earth that has fostered slavery beyond the 
point of the Divine intention; evils which, when 
measured by tbe short span of human wisdom, 
appear to be the result of the violent separation of mas- 
ter and slave. Therefore, whenever this separation 
shall be determined upon here, reason will dictate 
for our own benefit, and especially for that of the 
slave, that it ought to be effected with the mutual 
consent and approval of all parties interested. Such 
are the admonitions of history ; but even indepen- 
dently of these teachings, self-respect, and the high 
behests of humanity should be a sufficient induce- 
ment for emancipation. We claim to raise a stan- 
dard of equality in our Government, by which other 
nations may profit. Let us, then, make our whole 
conduct worthy of example. It is true, that, as a 
people, we claim to be highly favoured. We enjoy 
that liberty by which all are allowed to converse 
with God, each in his own good time and in his own 
'way, with a conscience free from molestation, except 
the poor African. He alone has no abiding place 
amongst us, where he can lay down his head, and 
rest in the consciousness that he too is free to come 
and go, and enjoy all tlie blessings by which his fel- 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 49 

low men are surrounded. Alas ! this is the land 
where the African (whether bond or free) is bound 
to render a full account of his brick. His home is 
not here. He, like the Israelite, must look to a land 
of promise. But in Africa he, too, will have a 
nationality of character. May his departure from 
shores alien and unkind to him alone, render him 
great and happy in the future ! 



50 OUR ^^ HOLE DUTY 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN A MEANS FOR EMANCIPATION. 

Degrading Efifects of the Mismanagement of the Public Domain — De- 
scription, History, and Extent of the Domain — Abuses and Proper 
Uses of the Domain — Congress incapable of properly managing the 
Domain. 

If it be our duty to send the African bondman to 
illuminate the darkness of his fatherland with the 
moral light which he has acquired from merely 
looking upon a liberty that he is not permitted 
to share — if it be our duty to do this with a por- 
tion of that wealth to which his compulsory labour 
has so largely contributed — it behoves us to inquire 
from what part of the national resources the neces- 
sary means can be, or should be appropriated. Let 
us, with this view, devote the present chapter to the 
consideration of the extent and character of that 
richest of all American possessions, the PubUc 
Domain, and the abuses practised upon it. 

When the policy or the construction of a Govern- 
ment gives impunity to outrage, whether from a 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 51 

desire to encourage, or an inability to check it, the 
tendency of that Government is towards decay and 
ruin. Already we are prating of the rapid acquisi- 
tion of territories inhabited by a people differing 
from us in language and religion — a people who 
cannot be made readily to understand the spirit of 
our institutions. What the Government does not 
attempt, in this direction, the people do; and how- 
ever lawless may be the manner of satisfying this 
desire for acquisition by means dishonourable and 
illegal, the Government cannot, or will not arrest 
the motion, until the adventurer becomes familiar 
with lawlessness. The dream of "manifest destiny" 
(I do not deny that dreams often come true) is caus- 
ing us to forget that our dominion may be extended 
beyond the point at which laws can be carried into 
effect, in a country of immense expansion and 
sparse population. We are on the point of losing, 
if we have not already lost, for the time, the power 
which adds most to the respectabihty of a nation,— 
tJie power to execute tlie laics; also, the far more im- 
portant power of protecting, as a sacred trust, the 
interests of the future. To this unhappy consum- 
mation we are rapidly approximating; so that, to 
provide for the licentious will soon be the chief occu- 
pation of Government, and individual rights in 
person or property will soon cease to be maintained. 



■§2 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

The lawlessness of the adventurer even now can 
scarcely be punished, especially for tlie crime of 
trespassing upon the territory and robbing the indi- 
viduals of the adjoining States. Nor is this all. 
He cannot be reached for putting a whole nation in 
motion to resist his barbarities, practised against a 
friendly power. The barbarities which the savages 
of the American forests have committed upon us, 
in point of turpitude and crime, fall far short of our 
unprovoked plunder of a friendly nation, wdiich, 
though boastful, is too feeble to jDunish. 

When a state will not, or cannot punish depreda- 
tions upon public property, then, just in proportion 
to the value of this property, it will be seized upon 
by the lawless adventurer. He will claim it as his 
own, independently of all rights of society, and, by 
an immoral contagion, his example will rapidly con- 
taminate the whole community. The demagogue, 
who is too often appointed to judge of these rights, 
and is sworn to administer the fundamental laws of 
the country justly, pronounces the usurpation war- 
rantable, in order to maintain an ephemeral popu- 
larity ; and, to this end, regardless of the public 
good, he will strain his limited ability to legislate 
for personal advantages, in opposition to tlie rights 
of society. Such is our experience in the acquisition 
of territory. Public lands are, upon this principle 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 53 

of legislation, voted away by our Government for 
all manner of purposes, upon any and eveiy pretext, 
regardless of the benefits which the proceeds of these 
lands w^ould yield, if expended upon objects con- 
ducive to the future interests of the people. The 
right of such a Government to hold out its system 
as an example to other realms, is gone. As well 
might the prodigal claim to be an economist : as 
well might the extortioner claim to be just. The 
father of a family may permit one son to destroy 
the property of his neighbour ; another, to rob him 
of his own ; a third, to establish himself upon the 
patrimonial acres, in defiance of his laws for the 
benefit of the whole family ; and altogether, to use 
up the whole estate in the purchase of as much as 
it will buy in matters of luxury, and then run in 
debt. He may do all this, while indulging a morbid 
desire to give away his lands to every stranger 
that approaches him ! But what should we say 
to the insane folly of such a parent ? Would we 
allow his proud claim to be a sound practical exam- 
ple to others ? It would be folly to hope, on behalf 
of a nation powerless to enforce its laws for the 
regulation of property, an escape from the fate which 
must inevitably fall upon a family governed in 
defiance of all morality, honesty, justice, and 
economy. 



54 U R W II O L E D U T Y 

Wealth, in a nation or an individual, cannot be 
detrimental where its true value is understood, 
where it is properly appreciated for its usefulness in 
supplying present wants and securing future benefits. 
Thus used, it adds true honour, power, and glory to 
the nation ; it is worse than useless when its appli- 
cation fails to do good, and it is expended in genera- 
ting evils prejudicial to the best interests of the 
people. 

The question may be asked, honestly and fairly, 
whether we have not arrived at that point in the 
progress of our Government, when the wealth of a 
nation begins to foster evils, such as neither morality 
nor patriotism can sanction. 

Henceforth, the tendency of American glory is 
downward, unless we come to a pause, and reflect 
upon the causes which have sunk us already so low ; 
unless we cease to be dazzled by the glare of the 
expiring lamp — the unnatural accession of glory 
and power which has invariably marked the 
approach of the decline of emj^ires, like the glow 
on the cheek of consumption, which gives a bright- 
ness to fading life, but owes its very existence to 
corruption and decay within. 

The time has arrived when the genuine pntriot, 
wherever he may be found — in the halls of Congress, 
in the capitols of states, tlie wild forest, the cultivated 



TOTIIEBLACKMAN. DO 

farm, or the private study, in whose tempered hght 
the abstract thinker calls up the spirits of the 
buried great, or the poet-seer reads the shadows of 
coming events — must rally to the rescue. They 
must unite as one man in seeking out nobler pur- 
poses to engage the efforts of our statesmen. All ! 
ALL ! are bound at this moment, — 

" Big with the fate of Caesar and of Rome," 

which is destined to determine the life or death, the 
glory or shame, of our country — to aid in the 
establishment of such a policy as shall give profitable 
and salutary direction to the wealth, power, and 
influence of the nation, and check the progress of 
those social poisons that sparkle to destroy. 

Brightest among all our possessions, most tempting, 
most corrupting, by the struggles it engenders for 
its divisions and spoils, lies the Public Domain. How 
shall we convert it from an instrument of corrup- 
tion and decay, into a lever for effecting sound 
national advancement. 

Of all our national burdens, the curse of slavery 
stands pre-eminent. To what nobler purpose can 
we devote a fair share of the proceeds of our almost 
unlimited possessions, than to the gradual and safe, 
the just removal of that curse? What, then, is the 
Public Domain ? 



SB OUR WHOLE DUTY 

All the territory of the United States which lies 
beyond, or outside of the original boundaries of the 
old thirteen states, except the " Western Reserve," 
the Virginian Military Reserve in Ohio, and such 
portions of our more recent acquisitions by purchase 
or conquest as were legally in the possession of 
private individuals of a civilized race at the time 
of annexation, have been part and parcel of the 
public domain. What is termed the " triangle " in 
Pennsylvania, (part of the county of Erie,) was 
also at one time a part of it.* Conflicting titles, 
growing out of the ignorance of geography at the 
time of the granting of the royal charters of Mas- 
sachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North 
Carolina, and Georgia, (nearly all of which claimed 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,) covered nearly all 
the territory west of these states, as far as the 
Mississippi river, beyond which the claims of France 
and Spain interfered with all the English titles.f 

* The " triangle " was claimed by Massachusetts and New York. 
It was purchased from those states by the United States, and sold 
to Pennsylvania in 1788, at eighty-seven cents per acre, to give this 
last-named state a frontier on the lakes. 

f New York had an indefinite claim to all the territory west of her 
limits. Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed all that lay west of 
•their respective borders, to the Pacific, though both were barred by 
the prior claim of Holland to the New Netherlands, now New 
Turk, and hence they were compelled to overleap that state. The 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 57 

The disputes between the states, growing out of this 
condition of things, together with the fears of the 
small states, (especially Maryland, who dreaded the 
seemingly limitless claim of Virginia, and her im- 
pending power,) induced all the claimants to cede 
their titles to the United States, in trust for the 
equal benefit of all the states, " and for no other pur- 
pose whatever."* Connecticut refused to cede the 
Western Reserve in Ohio, and was permitted to 
retain it. 

From the states of Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
shire, and Virginia, were formed those of Maine, 
Vermont, and Kentucky. From the lands trans- 
Connecticut claim also brought this state into conflict with Pennsyl- 
vania, and hence the feuds and border wars of Wyoming. 

The Virginian claim extended originally westward, at right angles 
to the coast, and so to the Pacific. Thus it covered the greater part 
of the lands west of Pennsylvania, north of the Ohio, and east 
of the Mississippi, to the northern boundary of the United States. 
Hence all these claims overlapped each other to a vast extent. 

* The terms of this part of the deed of cession were as follows : — 

"All the lands within the territory so ceded to the United States, 
and not reserved or appropriated to any of the before-mentioned 
purposes, or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of 
the American army, shall be considered as a common fund for the 
use and benefit of such of the states as have become, or shall be- 
come, members of the confederation or federal alliance of said 
states, Virginia inclusive, according to their respective proportions 
in the general expenditures, and shall be faithfully and bona fide 
disposed of for that purpose, and no other purpose whatever." 



58 OUR T^'IIOLE DUTY 

ferred to the United States, have sprung Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. By 
treaties with France and Spain, tlie annexation of 
Texas, and conquest from Mexico, we have since 
acquired vast territories beyond the limits of the 
first deed of trust, but not the less virtually bound 
by the same restriction to the equal benefit of all the 
states. From these have been derived the states of 
Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, with 
all those west of the great river of the same name. 
The public domain may now be defined to include 
all the land that is unsold or unappropriated, from 
the northern boundaries of Mexico and the Gulf, to 
the 49 th degree of north latitude, and from the 
limits of the thirteen original states, to the Pacific 
ocean. 

I am not enabled to lay my hand upon statistics 
showing exactly the whole amount of acres within 
this area; but I shall not be far wrong when I say 
that it contains seventeen hundred millions of acres, 
probably three hundred millions of which have been 
disposed of by adjustment in the settlement of claims, 
sales, and donations to states for school purposes and 
improvements, leaving on hand at least fourteen hun- 
dred millions of acres, either to be converted into 
means for effecting national good, or lavished, as is now 



T T H E B L A C K M A JSr . 59 

contemplated by Congress, on actual settlers, as a 
free gift/-' 

* Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut ceded 169,609,819 
acres; Georgia, 58,898,522 acres; and North and South Carolina, 
26,482,000 acres. The domain was enlarged by treaties with Great 
Britain in 1783 and 1794, and with Spain in 1795 and 1819 ; with 
France, in 1803, and with Mexico, in 1848. Before the purchase 
of Florida, when bounded by 49° N. lat., it was estimated 
at 1,242,792,673 acres, of which there remained unsold in 1843, 
1,084,064,993 acres. 

The principal appropriations of land by Congress, prior to 1843, 
were: — Every sixteenth section in each county, being one thirty- 
sixth of the whole, to schools in the new states : one-twentieth of 
the land for roads and other purposes : 6,000,000 acres bounty 
land in aid of the war with England, with special grants to re- 
fugees from Canada and Nova Scotia; to the State of Ohio, for 
internal improvements; and miscellaneous grants to General La- 
fayette, &c., in all amounting to about 33,000,000 acres. New 
York ceded in 1781; Virginia, in 1784; Massachusetts, in 1785; 
Connecticut, in 1786; South Carolina, in 1787; and Georgia, in 
1802. Congress commenced legislating on the public lands in 
1776; but the states claimed the right of soil as well as jurisdic- 
tion, and objected to the Congressional action till the cessions were 
completed. 

Connecticut reserved to herself a tract, (the Western Reserve,) 
bounded by 41° N. lat., and extending west, from the Pennsylvania 
line, 120 miles. Virginia stipulated for a security for the old French 
settlers on her claim, and reserved two tracts, one of 150,000 acres 
near the rapids of the Ohio, the other, known as the Military Re- 
serve, between the little Miami and Sciota rivers, for her soldiers 
of the Revolution. Georgia and South Carolina ceded the Missis- 
sippi Territory, from N. lat. 31° to N. lat. 35°, east of the Missis- 
sippi, Georgia receiving therefor 1,250,000 dollars. Georgia also 
stipulated for the extinction of the Indian titles by the United 
States. 



60 U E, T7 H L E D U T Y 

This property lias been acquired by conquest and 
purchase, at a vast sacrifice of blood and treasure. 
How this trust is carried out, we shall see. Thus 
far, all the money received for land which has been 
sold, falls far short of the price it cost, in wars, in 
extinguishing Indian titles, in surveying, and in fees 
to land officers and Indian agents. The balance has 
been paid by a tax, bearing upon each citizen alike ; 
yet. Congress has it now in contemplation to give the 
land away to one class of citizens only ! 

This domain was looked upon, in the early history 
of the Government, as constituting a fund of inex- 
haustible riches, for carrying into effect objects of 
vast interest to the people, and, at the same time, 
freeing them from burdensome taxes. There is a 
value in this domain, if properly applied, which 
would relieve taxation in many important wa3's. 
"With views such as these in regard to the public 
domain, laws were passed, immediately upon the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States, 
for regulating the mode of securing the title to the 
purchaser ; and the price was fixed at a rate deemed 
just, both towards purchaser and seller. But it was 
soon found that in the passage of those laws, neither 
the true interests of the domain nor those of the 
public were yet understood. 

Tlie first .sales of land by the Government were, 



T O T II E B L A C K M A N . 61 

1,000,000 of acres to John Syraes & Co., exclusive 
of two sections for religious purposes ; a like number 
to the Ohio Company, and 267,000 acres to the State 
of Pennsylvania — all at sixty-seven cents per acre. 
Part of the first two grants, however, reverted, from 
the inability of the purchasers to meet their engage- 
ments in full. No other sales were made in less 
quantities than by townships or entire sections, upon 
a credit, in four annual instalments, at two dollars 
per acre. That which gave peculiar value to con- 
tracts under these early enactments was, that the 
Government obliged itself to extinguish all Indian 
and other titles, to survey the lands, and to set 
durable landmarks, so that when the purchaser laid 
down his money, he received an indisputable and 
perfectly clear title. There was no clashing of 
boundary lines. 

Changes, with regard to terms of sale and pay- 
ment, have since been made, but the system of 
location and title remains the same to this hour. 
How pleasant such an arrangement must seem to 
the man who has paid the earnings of his whole 
life to lawyers, in order to secure his land, under the 
land warrant act of Virginia, in the Military Re- 
serve in the State of Ohio, where no such security 
of title exists ! The eifect of this system, which 
allowed each man to claim and survey his own 



6J2l U R W II L E D U T Y 

warrant, was to cause boundary lines to overlap, like 
shingles in the roof of a house. It was soon found 
that, for the benefit of the purchaser, land should 
be sold in less quantities than by townships, or even 
sections. Sales of half and quarter sections were 
then legalized, and land offices w^ere established. 
But even the quarter sections were speedily ascer- 
tained to be inconveniently large ; and it was also 
discovered that the credit system did not w^ork well. 
It so encumbered with debt the settlers of a new 
country which had scarcely any roads, and no out- 
lets to market, except the long sweep of the Missis- 
sippi river to the city of New Orleans, that they 
had no ability to pay. The Government, claiming 
to be just, and exacting justice in turn, caused a vast 
deal of hardship in the endeavour to collect the 
instalments due on such purchases. When it was 
found impracticable, compromises were resorted to ; 
and, in view of this difficulty, other regulations w^ere 
adopted which cannot be surpassed for their sim- 
plicity and practical utility. The law of 1820 
repealed all other laws in relation to the sale of land, 
except those that go to secure the most admirable 
title to the purchaser, and to regulate the penalties 
that had been provided from the beginning against 
trespassing upon public property. These penalties 
were increased, and the United States Marshal was 



TO THE BLACK MAN, 



required, by law, more strictly to enforce them. At 
this time, (only thirty-four years ago,) these laws 
were generally respected ; and where they were not, 
the penalty was exacted ; and this continued to be the 
case, without opposition or complaint upon the part 
of the people, until the administration of General 
Jackson, when pre-emption laws, passed in the year 
1832, led to the defiance of the national authority, 
to frauds upon the Government, by obtaining land 
under false pretences, and to trespasses upon the 
rights of future purchasers; which outrages were 
perpetrated with impunity. The pre-emption law 
required the raising of a crop to secure the legality 
of the claim ; yet the spirit of the law was evaded 
by the speculator. A small portion of land would 
be enclosed, say within four pannels of fence, by 
two persons living at a distance : wheat would then 
be sown therein. Next harvest, the speculators 
would return, and find a stalk or two of grain 
growing. They would rub this grain from the 
chaff, and call it harvesting ! Thus, by complying 
with the letter of the law, in violation of its spirit, 
they settled their consciences in swearing each other 
into a claim of one hundred and sixty acres each! 
No doubt evasions of the law contemplating the free 
gift of homesteads, will be practised by the specu- 
lator in like manner, if that law should be enacted. 



^4:' OURWHOLEDUTT 

What a value the land must possess, that will induce 
such contemptible frauds ! Much of the land 
claimed in this way would have brought ten dollars 
per acre at a fair public sale. Does this not prove, 
to the full conviction of every right-minded man, 
the high value of this Domain, considered by the 
Government so worthless now, as to be solely the 
object of a free gift ? 

Under the pre-emption law, the fraudulent prac- 
tices against the future purchasers were effected after 
this manner : a man would establish a claim to a 
lot of one hundred and sixty acres, partly wood and 
partly prairie; he would then cut rails upon the 
public property to fence in this said lot, regardless 
of the legal penalties enjoined in such cases. What 
is the practice of the Government in the enforce- 
ment of these penalties now? In the North, she 
commands the marshal to enforce them whenever 
he can find the plunderer of pine logs ; and if 
caught, the culprit is obliged to pay the penalty in 
some way or other; whilst in Utah or California she 
permits the squatter to plunder and lawlessly riot 
upon the public property with impunity. Is this 
even justice? Would it not be better and more 
honourable, under such circumstances, to abrogate 
altogether the laws enjoining penalties ? 

When the idea of giving away 1,000,000,000 acres 



TO THE BLx\CK MAN. 65 

of land is boldly held out, and we call to mind the 
mismanagement of the public land trust for the last 
twenty years, surely it may be charged against Con- 
gress that, in this matter, it has been an unfaithful 
steward. IIow much does this recent neglect of a 
great public interest contrast with the care and cau- 
tion of the Congress of 1820, in relation to the 
same trust ! Then, a law was passed, requiring that 
the whole of the land should be surveyed into eighty 
acre lots ; and that each lot should first be offered 
for sale by public outcry, and sold to the highest 
bidder. This law enacted penalties against all 
manner of conspiracies to prevent a fair sale. After 
the vendue, the land offered, but remaining unsold, 
was registered in the land office, subject to be sold 
in any required quantities, by proper officers ap- 
pointed for this purpose. It was also provided that 
any citizen should be allowed to purchase any lot 
of forty acres which he might prefer, after making 
oath that he would never again make a like applica- 
tion. It is obvious that this privilege might em- 
barrass or jorevent the sale of a section to which a 
selected lot belonged, especially when the remainder 
of the section happened to be inferior in quality or 
position ; but, for the benefit of the man who had 
only fifty dollars with which to buy a clear title to 
forty acres, he was allowed the privilege at all risks 
E 



66 OURWHOLEDUTY 

of inconvenience or loss to the Government. I'ifty 
dollars for forty acres of land ! only think of it ! 
The land my eyes now rest on, as I gaze though the 
small window before which I write, bears a taxation 
annually more than equal to this price ! Who would 
not, when plunder is thought disreputable, rather 
jmrchase a title at such a rate than be classed with 
beggars? How much better would it be for the 
whole people, and the poor man himself, if the 
Government had steadily enforced this law, without 
the false pretence of sympathy for the poor, which is 
now so strongly professed b}^ tlie demagogue and 
speculator on land as well as upon the Presidency ! 
It must be seen that the law might have been made 
to extend to a twenty acre lot, for the benefit of the 
poor man. Twenty acres for twenty-five dollars ! 
would this have been a hardship ? Certainly not ; 
for, the land upon the Public Domain is equal in 
value to any other land upon earth, and twenty 
acres, properly cultivated, will support a large 
family anywhere. Even in the forest it will do it; 
and, just in j^roportion to the growth of a dense 
population in the neighbourhood around, it increases 
in value. Twenty acres make a large farm in the 
neighbourhood of cities. Besides, I have known 
men who have lived upon six hundred and forty 
acres, without having cleared ii]) and brought under 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 67 

cultivation as much as twenty acres. The whole 
of this free homestead mania, when honestly ex- 
hibited, is the result of a false sympathy, and goes 
to enrich one class of the community at the expense 
of others. 

Is it not time to look after an interest coverins: 
hundreds of millions of dollars, that can be applied 
in such a manner as to benefit substantially every 
citizen, and entail rich blessings on the future, all, 
all alike, participating in its benefits as they stand 
alike in sovereignty of citizenship? Such is the 
value and quality of the means I would in part apply 
to cure the evil of slavery. 

The Public Domain includes gold mines that 
ought, on every principle of justice, to be secured to 
the nation ; for, so long as no equivalent is paid for 
the use of those mines by one citizen, it is unjust in 
the extreme to punish another for trespassing upon 
pine or oak timber lands ; as is done in many regions 
without mercy. So soon as means, growing out of 
the territories, shall be made applicable to high 
philanthropic objects, and others of general import, 
then, a rent should be exacted for these mines. 

I think I have show^n that in the Pubhc Domain 
we possess all the power and means necessary to 
emancipate the slave in a manner equally consistent 



6S OUR WHOLE DUTY 

with tlie interests of servant and master, tlie north 
and the south. 

In my plan for the application of these means, I 
intend to show that the nation will be invisforated 
by the measure, and that its benefits will be distri- 
buted among all the citizens alike, and in just pro- 
portion. I shall take occasion also to demonstrate, 
still more forciblj^, that the Homestead Bill, now 
before Congress, is not based upon charity, human- 
ity, honesty, or justice. The false pretences and 
sophistry, upon the strength of which this bill is 
urged, together with the whole disgraceful manage- 
ment by Congress of so vast a trust, leaves not a 
doubt upon my mind of the unfitness of Congress for 
the management of the Public Domain. To prevent 
the evils and moral deformity growing to most gi- 
gantic dimensions out of this mismanagement, (which 
need but to be rightly examined to shock the whole 
nation,) was the motive that prompted this inquiry. 
The remedy — the result — I have written down and 
printed. 

Almost my whole life has been spent in the open 
air, in field and forest, sometimes looking upon and 
commiserating the wrongs heaped upon the poor 
Indian, and, at the same time, observing the frauds 
committed upon the Government by the lawless 
adventurer, setting aside in his profligac}- law, jus- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. GO 

tice, and humanitj^ I have been all the while rather 
observing and noting those scenes by which I M^as 
surrounded, than studying the graces of literature, 
with a view to their presentment in a captivatinc^ 
dress. Unused to the practice of the pen, I would 
wish you, reader, to judge me rather by what I 
say and mean, than by the mere manner and style 
in which I have said it. 

I desire to see the appropriation of the Public 
Domain made in accordance with the simplest prin- 
ciple of common sense, such as actuates the boy 
who picks rags out of the gutter, looking into the 
future for wealth and competence, intelligence and 
respectability for his family ! To this end, he does 
not clothe himself with these rags. He washes them, 
and has them rendered into paper upon which the 
value of millions may be stamped. How this poor 
boy w^ould scandalize himself by covering his body 
with these rags ! Would a similar policy be worthy 
of the nation that claims to lead the van in the 
march of civilization and philanthropy ? Yet such 
is precisely our policy in relation to the public 
lands. Citizens of a glorious Republic, with whom 
lies all the power, let us change the disgraceful 
system. Let us take our noble estate out of the 
liands of agents unworthy of the trust. But how ? 
In the next chapter, we shall see. 



'TO OUR WHOLE DUTY 



CHAPTER IV. 

PLAN FOR CONSTITUTIONALLY REMOVING THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 
FROM THE CUSTODY OF CONGRESS. 

Proposed Convention of the People for considering the Public Domain aa 
a means for Emancipation and other great National Purposes — Plan for 
the Organization of a Board of the Public Domain — Propriety of encour- 
raging Public Works in Africa — Hints on Negro Education, in antici- 
pation of the Exodus — " The Redemption System" in Africa — Appro- 
priations to American Public School Funds, with collateral extinction 
of the State Debts, and the encouragement of State Improvements — 
Folly of the Free Homestead Scheme — How to prevent injury to the 
South from the Exodus — Amplitude of the Resources from the Domain, 
if properly guarded — Beneficial results to Agriculture, Commerce, 
Currency, and Morals — Tendency of California Gold to extend Slave 
Territory — Further Remarks on the Free Homestead Scheme. 

At the close of the last chapter, I stated the 
conclusion, legitimately drawn from a long history 
of abuses, that if the proceeds of the Public Domain 
are to be wisely appropriated to truly national pur- 
poses, and especially to the ultimate removal of the 
curse of slavery, the public lands must he talcen from 
the guardlamJiij) of Congress, and placed, by the 
people, in hands capable of properly administering 
the trust. 



TO THE BLACK MAN 



In effecting this object, I would propose tliat the 
people, in their majesty, should insist that Congress 
should pass a law, providing for the election of one 
citizen from each congressional district in the United 
States, to meet in convention in Washington upon 
any appointed day after the 4th of March, 1855, for 
the purpose, in the first instance, of deciding the 
simple questions, Whether it be right and expedient 
that measures for the ultimate emancipation and 
colonization of the coloured race in this country 
should be now prospectively provided for ; and 
whether the principal or the interest of the proceeds of 
the public lands should be, wholly or in part, appro- 
priated to the accomplishment of this purpose, with- 
out detriment to the rights of the owner of the 
slaves. 

Should the convention decide these questions in 
the negative, its labours would cease by the absence 
of further matter for deliberation : but, let us suppose 
the people of the United States, thus in formal and 
lawful convention assembled, to have resolved that 
it would be right and expedient to commence and 
complete the emancipation of the slave in the course 
of the next hundred years, if it should require that 
length of time to do so wisely and safely ; more- 
over, that, in the Public Domain, we possess the 
required means. Then, with a view to set aside all 



72 U R AV II U L E D U T Y 

manner of doubt that the revenues growing out of 
at least the interest of the proceeds of this domain 
will be permanently applied to this and other equally 
noble purposes, the convention should appoint, or 
determine the manner of choosing the proper num- 
ber of persons, of the right character and standing, 
to regulate and effect the sales of the public lands, 
just so fast as the United States shall extinguish 
Indian titles ; to manage the proper investment of 
the same ; and to apply the proceeds thereof to the 
several objects of national importance which may 
be designated by the convention. These trustees, 
composing a Board of the Public Domain, should 
have a written constitution, in which their precise 
duties must be laid down and defined in such a 
manner that the limits of their power cannot be 
misunderstood, or its action misapplied. The plan 
which I propose is, that at least one person, not less 
than fifty years of age, shall be elected by the peo- 
ple of each state, as a member of the Board of the 
Piiblic Domain., which board shall be invested with 
ample power to receive the proceeds of sales, and 
attend to the disbursement of the same. That not 
more than one-half of the proceeds of any one ^ear 
should be applied to purposes of emancipation in 
that year; and moreover, that no larger number of 
negroes, whether freemen or slaves, should be for- 



T T II E B L A C K M A N . 16 

warded to Africa by the board, at any time, than 
would be likely to find employment and comfortable 
subsistence there : that, out of this moiety, $100,000 
or even a larger sum, should be deposited witli 
the Liberian Government annually, so long as 
the people of Liberia shall be willing to accept it, 
upon condition that they consent to tax themselves, 
and pay in support of their common and agricultural 
schools, six per cent, per annum upon these donations. 
This sum, judiciously invested in public improve- 
ments, especially railroads leading into the interior 
of Africa, or in steamboats to run upon their im- 
portant rivers, would soon begin to produce such 
striking effects upon the civilization of Africa, and * 
bring such an amount of African products to Liberia, 
as to offer a powerful inducement to the more 
wealthy portion of our free coloured population to 
seek the means of comfort, prosperity, and freedom 
in Africa. This movement would naturally be fol- 
lowed by a desire on the part of the coloured men 
generally, to leave a land in which social inequality 
presents a hopeless barrier against their elevation 
above virtual serfdom. Thus, by means so small, 
yet so encouraging, would Liberia, in her improve- 
ments, increase her resources and her commerce to 
such an extent, that she would soon find means 
within herself for the support of all slaves that it 



74 u K vr HOLE duty 

might be found desirable to send her, and all free- 
men of colour that could not be restrained from 
going. The labour-saving power of railroads is such 
that, in the civilization of Africa, they cannot be 
dispensed with. This, the free and wealthy black 
of American experience, would soon discover. He 
would soon find the educated native African, educated 
by him, quite ready to aid him in such a scheme; 
and, to carry it forward, he would require little more 
than tools, and a sufficient number of American 
coloured engineers and labourers to direct or assist 
in the construction of public works. To favour this 
end, measures ought to be immediately adopted to 
• secure to a number of intelligent blacks a practical 
engineering education that would enable them not 
only to accomplish such works, but also to conduct 
like schools in the country of their fathers. 

All that is essential in the case of railroads or 
any other great undertaking in Africa, is simply to 
start the race in the right course, with ship-builders, 
bricklaj-ers, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, &c. 
They will then soon help themselves, and year after ^ 
3'ear hold out stronger and stronger inducements to 
the American African to migrate. Africa has far 
less need of much money than of proper encourage- 
ment and advice. With these, the resources of 
AlVira would soon elevate her ci\ilized people above 



T T II E B L A C K M A N . 75 

the necessity of further assistance; and the influence 
of our kind regard for them, displayed in this effec- 
tive manner, would tend to ennoble them and raise 
their self-esteem, while imbuing them with affection 
towards the land of their former oppression, but 
present benefaction ; and placing that land on the 
footing of the most favoured nation in their future 
and invaluable trade. With feelings such as would 
then inspire them, and with the rapid increase of 
numbers yearly arriving from America, they would 
speedily enlarge the boundaries of their civilization 
and the circle of their affiliated states. Thus they 
would continue to make progress, until the continent 
itself would become redeemed from the darkness and 
depravity that have degraded it to the dust for ages. 
With such guidance, and such encouragement, who 
can foresee, or even imagine what Africa may become 
in the short space of three generations ? 

But, in the furtherance of this good work, we 
should establish, in every state of the Union in which 
the black man may be found, institutions where the 
coloured orphan, or the children of the idle, the con- 
vict, the drunkard, and all such as fail to give their 
children moral instruction, should be gathered 
together, and taught such things as would be most 
suited to their capacity ; and such among them as 
display superior talent, girls as well as boys, should 



76 OUR TTIIOLE DUTY 

be so instructed as to fit them for teachers in the 
common schools of Africa. Lads of less marked 
ability should be bound out to farmers and mechan- 
ics, where proper places could be found ; the girls 
should be sent into families where the}^ could be ' 
taught house-keeping. As these unfortunates be- 
come fitted for usefulness, they should be sent to 
Africa. These schools would afford opportunities 
to thousands of humane slave-holders, (and I know 
many such men,) to oJSer at the altar of humanity 
children that are often but a source of anxiety and 
care to them. 

A union of sentiment upon the destiny of the 
Americmi African being once established, it may 
readily be perceived how the feelings of all would 
harmonize. The young would be offered in not 
inconsiderable numbers as a free gift, as being the 
most effective in the work of emancipation. Tlie 
current of an enlightened emigration of negroes 
from America to Liberia once established, a daily- 
increasing commerce would enlarge the resources of 
Africa. Her merchants, like our own in the days 
of "the redemption system," would then invite the 
emigrant as a source of profit ; and his passage the 
resident employer would gladly pay, in return for 
limited service. Thus immigration would contin- 
ually increase the agricultural productiveness of the 



TO THE BLACK M AN . 7? 

country, and enhance its export trade, its national 
wealth, and the number of ships and steamboats 
which would be required for the African trade ; so 
that, from that moment, emancipation and commerce 
would progress side by side, and all barriers to 
national advancement would soon disappear. 

Thus fairly started by our advice and assistance 
on the march of a higher destiny, the colonies of 
civilized negroes would become the most powerful 
propagandists for the civilization of the savage tribes 
of the interior, and, as Christianity is the only true 
foundation for social improvement, Africa would find 
in her public schools, established upon a portion of 
the proceeds of the Public Domain, and organized 
on the American model, the supply of Christian 
teachers required to redeem the whole continent 
from its depraved condition, and elevate the people 
to such rank among the nations as the untrammelled 
mental and physical power of the race may enable 
it to reach. No doubt this great work will be cor- 
dially promoted by every Christian communion. 
All Christian sects will vie with each other in edu- 
cating blacks of superior ability, to carry the gospel 
to this now heathen land. 

To look at the present degradation of Africa, and 
the past history and present state of American 
slavery — the one presenting the depth of depravity. 



78 OURWHOLEDUTT 

the other a story of multitudinous wrongs — it might 
seem that both these evils had reached a maturity 
that nothing could relieve — that no human power 
could now change the destiny of either. But when 
we consider the immense resources to be realized 
from a moiety only of our public lands ; when we 
reflect upon the effects of spontaneous advancement 
in Africa; the result of Christianity, education, 
agriculture, commerce, and public improvements — 
all started and facilitated by such ample, nay, super- 
abundant means — why should we hesitate to wipe 
from our national escutchion every trace of the 
wrongs we have inflicted on the African race? 
Why, with these means in our hands, should we 
resist the voice of the Almighty, and oppose his 
scheme by saying of this ponderous exodus. It shall 
not take place ? 

Having now examined how one-half of the pro- 
ceeds of the Public Domain can be best applied for 
the benefit of the black man, (and when annually 
applied under the direction of such a board as has 
been proposed, who can doubt its sufficiency or 
beneficial results?) let us inquire what the other 
moiety, directed by the same wisdom, is capable of 
doing for ourselves. A portion of these means should 
be divided annually and pro-rata among the several 
states, upon the condition that the states should 



T T n E B L A C K M A N . 79 

appropriate six per cent, upon the amount deposited, 
to the support of tlieir own common scliools. How 
would this rule work? In Pennsylvania this money 
would be best used, at first, in buying her debt of 
forty millions. It is true that the interest would 
still have to be paid, at least for a time ; but with 
this difference — much of this interest now accrues 
to foreign bond-holders, which would be paid, under 
this new system, to the schoolmaster; the principal 
being invested in the school fund. 

As the management of the Public Domain is sup- 
posed in this plan to be taken entirely and finally 
out of the ha7ids of Congress, and regulated by com- 
missioners of the states, each state, through its 
representative in the board, would secure its own 
equitable interest in the proceeds. Now, whenever 
the pro-rata share of any state should be found to 
exceed the most liberal demands of the school fund, 
the increase of this fand might be arrested, and the 
future dividends devoted, with the consent and 
approval of the board, to other purposes of the 
highest interest to the state or the nation. Among 
i^uch purposes might even be the extinguishment of 
the state debts to the school fund, by the appropria- 
tion of these future dividends to its credit in other 
secure investments. Pennsylvania is now paying a 
heavy state tax, and an almost equally heavy school 



80 OURWIIOLEDUTY 

tax. The effect of sucli a measure, in progress of 
time, would be to remove the necessity of all state tax ; 
and similar or equivalent benefits would be conferred 
upon every state in the Union, both old and new. 
Thus would be brought about the just execution of 
the original trust, and the distribution of the pro- 
ceeds of the public lands, among all the legitimate 
owners. Will any honest man now contend for the 
giving away of these lands, upon the plea that the 
houseless poor must first be made rich, before the 
removal of ignorance, the securing of public morals, 
the defence of the country, or the expenses of wars 
are at all provided for? Shall we pursue a policy 
that must continually create pauperism, merely for 
the purpose of enriching the pauper when created? 
In order to accomplish this insane, if not wicked 
purpose, shall we forever deprive ourselves of the 
only means for accomplishing the peaceful emanci- 
pation of the negro, and leave to our children the 
horrible inheritance of a servile war? Such mad- 
ness must one day enthrone within the Capitol 
" the Abomination of Desolation !" 

I must now draw the attention of the reader to 
an all-important consequence of the African exodus, 
when the numbers of the American slaves become 
seriously diminished. With the diminutiou of 
labourers, labour will be enhanced in value, unless 



T T II E B L A C K M A N . 81 

the natural growth of the white, should keep pace 
with the decrease of the black race. Be this as it 
may, the great staple of the South must be embar- 
rassed for a time, by the removal of a class of unpaid 
labourers thought to be peculiarly adapted to its cul- 
ture. It is not impossible that the cheap peon labour 
of Mexico might in part or entirely supply the 
deficiency, if, as is probable, necessity or uncurbed 
ambition should bring that country under the shadow 
of the stars and stripes, and charge us with the pro- 
tection of another race, stronger than, and fully as 
economical as the Chinese, and equally incapable of 
amalgamating with our own. But, in any case, the 
cotton of America is destined to inevitable comj)eti- 
tion with that of civilized Africa, where an enlarged 
production and a more fitting climate may render 
that competition formidable. Prudence, then, re- 
quires that the friends of eventual emancipation 
should look around in time for other and not less 
profitable species of labour, and other staples, to fill 
up the partial vacuum to be created by our scheme. 
It strikes me that the substitution of mining and 
manufiicturing operations for a portion of deficient 
agricultural employment, would furnish the most 
effective remedy for the evil ; and among these, the 
manufacture of iron holds the first place. The vast 
quantity of this metal consumed in our own coun- 
P 



S2 OUR \r 11 OLE DUTY 

try would afford, in itself, a very heavy operation; 
but Africa, at every step of her progress, would open 
new markets for iron ; and, with her advancement, 
the 'market would become almost unbounded. It 
may become proper, at some future day, to offer, out 
of the portion of the proceeds of the public lands 
appropriated to our own uses, at least a temporary 
bounty on iron, so adjusted as to enable us to under- 
sell foreign iron in our own market, until home com- 
petition shall so reduce the price of manufacture, as 
to save us, in our own supply, at least as much per 
ton as the amount of the bounty ; a result which expe- 
rience proves to be ultimately certain. By sending iron 
to Africa, we should receive in return products which, 
while enriching us, would largely assist us in remu- 
nerating Europe and other countries for the products 
we should require from them. Trade thus estab- 
lished would render us much more independent than 
to be continually obliged to demand supplies of a 
manufactured article, even from nations dependent 
upon us for the raw material ; but when the raw 
material is refused, and yet the foreign manufacturer 
forces his merchandise upon us while we possess the 
raw material in inexhaustible quantity, the jDolicy is 
disgraceful to our own character for energy and 
enterprise. Home competition is the only power that 
can permanently diminish prices, and free us from 



TO THE BLACK MA]S'. .8S 

foreign extortion. Nor need I add one word to show 
that, if means drawn out of the public lands be 
wisely appropriated in favouring this competition, the 
benefits resulting from the measure will be equit- 
ably felt by every citizen ; and, of all staples, iron is 
the most universal in its application. 

But this measure should address itself with pecu- 
liar force to the South ; for it would cause furnaces 
to be established in the very places where the 
vacuum created by emancipation and colonization 
would be most sensibly felt. Virginia, Maryland, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina — all admira- 
bly supplied with the deposits of iron — would erect 
them in every direction. These would prove highly 
incentive to other operations. Indeed, every de- 
partment of business would be enriched by the 
growth of this manufacture. 

There are also other mechanical pursuits which 
might be made greatly to assist in filling up the 
vacuum in labour to be produced by the exodus of 
the negro. To say nothing of those which call into 
use the great staples of cotton and wool — with the 
vast importance of which the South, from Virginia 
to Georgia, is already so familiar — I think that a 
certain amount of bounty upon the manufacture of 
silk would be found greatly to the advantage of 
those regions best adapted to the culture of the 



84 OURWIIOLEDUTT 

worm, (among which, North Carolina stands pre- 
eminent,) as well as to those neighbourhoods where 
the machinery might be located. This measure of 
temporary assistance to young and struggling manu- 
factures escapes entirely the objections urged by 
politicians of the school which opposes protective 
duties as calculated to raise prices upon the con- 
sumer; for the obvious effect of bounties is to 
diminish prices even before home competition has 
reduced them to a minimum ; and, in the plan I 
advocate, these bounties are drawn from a source 
which Congress is strongly endeavouring to squander 
in a manner worse than useless. Under the influence 
of enterprise directed towards such objects as are 
suo'sested, the farm would errow into value beside 

CD 7 O 

the furnace ; and the factory and the garden, in the 
neighbourhood of the village : and nothing would 
remain to make us afraid that an act of moral jus- 
tice might cause the desolation of our country or 
our home ! Thus, the proceeds of the Public 
Domain may be applied to the noblest and most 
useful purposes connected with the honour, pros- 
perity, and pecuniary interests of the whole country, 
and, at the same time, promotive of its morals and 
corrective of its corruptions. AVith what patience, 
then, can we regard the folly that would devote to 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 85 

the beggar-making gift of free homesteads to the 
worthless and the idle, a treasure such as this ! 

Vast as the resources of this domain will undoubt- 
edly be, even independently of any tax upon gold 
mines, if the national estate be husbanded and con- 
ducted on the principles which govern private affairs, 
(more than sufficient as they would unquestionabl37" 
prove for any scheme which has yet been devised or 
dreamed of by American statemen,) we should not 
conceal from ourselves the fact, that even the most 
ample resources must be severely taxed in carrying 
out the emancipation and deportation of 3,500,000 
slaves without injustice to the master; for the idea 
is not to be tolerated that the nation should ask any 
portion of its citizens to sacrifice upon the altar of 
liberty, or, if you please, the shrine of abstract jus- 
tice, that which has descended to them from their 
ancestors as property, secured to them as such by 
the Constitution itself — that which, though forced 
upon them originally by a tyrannical power, in spite 
of their remonstrances, now constitutes their neces- 
sary means of subsistence and comfort. Before the 
African can be sent by the people to the home of 
his fathers, his master must be remunerated for the 
loss of his services; and no small totality of millions 
will suffice for so enormous a demand. The vastness 
of the Domain is, therefore, no apology for exempt- 



SG OURTTHOLEDUTY 

ing the gold mines on the pubUc lands of California 
from all charge, while we protect by law the white 
pines of the north-west and the live-oaks of Florida, 
At first, even the interest of the proceeds of the 
sales of land may be sufficient for our scheme of 
American and African education, and the little 
streams of budding colonization ; but when Africa 
is ready, and the torrent of emancipation begins to 
fill its banks, the drain upon this national estate 
wdll be such that it behoves us to be careful of all just 
income, and California can claim no proper exemp- 
tion from restraints elsewhere established to check 
the plunder of the public. No doubt, thus hus- 
banded, the public lands — continually rising in 
value, like the Sibylline leaves, by the very fact of 
their diminution — would ultimately produce more 
than a sufficiency for all the demands of education, 
colonization, proper bounties on certain manufactures, 
and the extinguishment of existing state debts. 
But the present amplitude of the national wealth is 
no reason for squandering upon one or two genera- 
tions, in an irrational and demoralizing manner, the 
rich inheritance of the future. 

In carrj ing out our scheme, before any consider- 
able appropriations in the form of bounties will be 
found necessar}', except for iron, the proceeds of the 
sales of public lands will have merged in the school 



TOT II EEL A CK MAN. 87 

funds the amount of the indebtedness of tlie states 
whose finances are encumbered, and will have 
brought other equivalent advantages to those more 
happily circumstanced. This will be the natural 
result of the slow progress and slender financial 
demands that emancipation must of necessity make 
in the beginning; because the march of improve- 
ment in Africa will be slow at first, and these de- 
mands must always be made to depend upon the 
progress of the exodus; and, as has been already 
suggested, it would be wrong to crowd into Africa 
more persons, either freemen or emancipated slaves, 
than can find there proper employment and the 
means of comfortable subsistence. But it would be 
folly in us to permit a vigilant rival to secure the 
initiative in the future market for the great staple 
of iron, by means of her present power to undersell 
us, in consequence of the low price of labour with 
her. In order to prevent this unfortunate result, it 
will be proper to encourage iron manufactures in 
America by a suitable bounty from the commence- 
ment of operations. At first, then, and for many 
years, the moiety of the proceeds of the Public 
Domain will be sufficient to meet all the necessities 
of emancipation, direct or collateral, immediate or 
prospective. But, as African civilization advances, 
temporary bounties on other branches of manufac- 



8S: OUR WHOLE DUTY 

ture will become important to the encouragement 
of our trade with her. These will increase the 
demands upon the proceeds of the domain ; but the 
fund thence derivable will be so vast, under an 
honest and equitable administration of nearly 
1,400,000,000 acres, that its division into two equal 
proportions, as suggested, would, if continued, soon 
prove burdensome to the states; for all pecuniary 
surplusages are temptations to corruptions which 
neither statesmen nor private individuals are always 
able to resist. This would be the case as soon as 
the amount of debts of indebted states should be 
merged in the school-fund, and the school-tax oblit- 
erated by the investment of further dividends if 
required. The desire for additional appropriations 
to the states would then be gradually diminished, 
and a larger sum could be conveniently deposited to 
meet the expenses of the increasing exodus. Moreover, 
whatever demands might hereafter be made upon 
this fund by the states, from time to time, we find, 
in the proposed arrangement for the administration 
of this trust, the safest means of properly determin- 
ing such questions, and securing the general and 
equitable interests of all. It is not to be supposed 
that a body of grave representatives from the several 
states, (all men over fifty 3'ears of age, of the highest 
intellect, and the most enlarged experience,) would 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 89 

permit the resources entrusted to their care to be 
perverted to corrupt purposes, or subjected to indi- 
vidual embezzlement. 

The plan which I propose is also of the highest 
importance in another point of view. The disposi- 
tion of this vast fund derived from the Public 
Domain, regulated in the manner suggested, will 
give the yield of gold, now one of the staples of the 
country, a direction different from that which it 
takes at present. It will find permanent and pro- 
fitable investment in the promotion of agriculture 
and manufactures — the material of wealth and 
trade — instead of giving mere temporary facilities to 
trade, tempting the trader to wild speculations, en- 
gendering in the public alternate paroxysms of 
extravagance and ruinous collapse, from the general 
ignorance of the true principles of finance. 

The application of this gold to commerce, the 
chief direction now given to it, has a tendency to 
render the cotton-growing states especially subser- 
vient to the foreign manufacturer, and binds the 
slave-holder by his immediate interests with such 
pertinacity to the infatuation of commerce, that 
he forgets that there is any labour in the country 
w^orth the protection of our Government, except 
slave labour ; also neglecting the fact that a war of 
two or three years with Great Britain would render 



90 OUR Ti^ II OLE DUTY 

this labour profitless to himself, and the labourer a 
burden to the community, until the growth of 
domestic manufactures should create an increased 
demand for labour throughout the country, so as 
once more to raise cotton above the condition of a 
drug. 

The causes of decay are spread throughout the 
universe, and their ultimate power cannot be re- 
sisted : — nature will ultimately enforce her laws : — 
but, in cases in which pernicious influences act upon 
the prosperity of a nation or an individual, it be- 
comes the duty of man to resist their deleterious 
agency, by legitimate or rational means. Keeping 
in mind this solemn truth, let us examine how this 
California gold is now afiecting the interests of the 
nation. 

This gold, at present, cannot be said to yield 
wealth ; for the reason, that it is chiefly expended 
in the purchase of such articles as are of immediate 
consumption, or are destructible in a short time. It 
encourages, in this manner, a display of wealth and 
luxury, without creating any lasting benefits. It 
encourages us to purchase all that promotes habits of 
show and indulgence ; consequentl}^, it tends to the 
increase of idleness, and to broad distinctions between 
tbe ricli and the poor, political corruption, and social 
demoralization. The injury done to the nation by 
these means, is like that which is often witnessed 



TOTIIEBLACKMAN. 91 

in a family that prides itself upon the wealth which 
enables it to purchase all that it wants, almost with- 
out exertion. How often do we see the children of 
such a family rendered idle, profligate, and vicious 
in their habits, and finally dissipating their entire 
patrimony! We almost always observe that the 
sons of men whose lives have been passed in the 
dignified indejDendence which labour yields, are 
precisely those who stand firmest in support of 
the honour, dignity, and independence of the nation. 
The California gold also reacts most essentially 
upon slavery — our most perplexing national ques- 
tion — and upon the value of our Public Domain. 
It clinches the despotism of the former, and promotes 
the profligate squandering of the latter. It clinches 
slavery by inflating commerce, and it aguments 
the means for the immediate purchase of mere 
luxuries from abroad. The increased amount of 
foreign fabrics imported upon the strength of the 
credit derived from this staple, especially of fabrics 
composed of cotton, which exceed almost all other 
importations in value, increases the demand for the 
results of foreign labour, to the disadvantage of 
national industry. This, in turn, increases the 
foreign orders for crude cotton. The unnaturally 
stimulated growth of this branch of trade has the 
effect of enlarging the income from slave labour, and 



92 OURWHOLEDUTT 

consequently prompts the slave owner to make 
strong efforts for the extension of slave territory. 
To these efforts he is at all times induced by two 
powerful, selfish motives : the one, the accumulation 
of personal wealth ; the other, the maintenance of 
an influence in the Government equal to that of the 
free states, by the aid of a constitutional provision 
for a slave representation. By such means, he hopes 
so to control the operation of the commercial wealth 
of the country, as to render permanent the high 
value of slave labour, although he cannot escape the 
conviction that the continuance of the policy he 
pursues must inevitably prostrate the industry and 
moral condition of the whole communitj^ 

Finding that the California gold, together with 
duties on excessive importations of foreign products 
additionally stimulated thereby, now more than 
supplies all the demands upon the national treasury, 
the short-sighted people urge upon Congress the free 
gift of the Public Domain to adventurers, in order 
that the present state of trade may be the more 
readily continued. Such are the eflects of the 
policy pursued by the Government, that, if 
persisted in, we shall find, on the one hand, 
the Public Domain given over to foreign men- 
dicants, and, on the other, slave labour fostered to 



TOTHEBLACKMAN. 93 

the exclusion of the free industrial pursuits of the 
nation. 

When the riches of the Public Domain are pro- 
perly examined, it becomes difficult to account for 
the propensity manifested by the Congress of the 
United States to entertain every project that tends 
to promote an unjust, unequal, and unrighteous dis- 
position of it, unless upon the supposition that Con- 
gress is a body whose constitutional organization 
unfits it for the propter management of so valuable 
and so peculiar an estate. Of all the wild projects it 
has yet entertained, this Homestead Bill is the most 
unjust in all its bearings. Its injustice to the 
mechanic, and to all classes of citizens not engaged 
in agriculture, is too obvious for comment ; but it 
cannot claim equity, even towards the agriculturalist. 
A farmer with his sons, residing at a distance from 
the Domain, cannot be expected to leave his farm 
and go to this Domain for the sake of the additional 
land, upon which he must reside five years to acquire 
an honest title ; nor will he be disposed to send his 
sons there, at the sacrifice of home associations ; but 
one living upon the Domain already, can claim, 
without inconvenience, one hundred and sixty acres 
for himself, and as much more for each of his sons. 
The project does not present one single honest feature. 
It is dishonest from its very inception. Indepen- 



94 u R "vr n L E D U T T 

clently of the immoral bearing of this measure, in 
effecting an unjust distribution of the land itself, it 
is marked by another feature of injustice, which I 
desire the people of Pennsylvania and all the old 
thirteen states to look at and examine closely. I 
have stated that the existing laws in relation to the 
public lands have required, from the first, that the 
Indian title should be extinguished, and an indis- 
putable title rendered to the purchaser. This mea- 
sure I claimed to be of the highest importance. 
Now, upon giving the land away, one of two things 
must happen : either these vital facilities must be 
continued at the expense of the Government, or the 
recipient of the land must seek his title in the best 
way he can, and be obliged to rest it upon a personal 
claim, marking his own boundaries, which I under- 
stand to be the practice upon the gold lands. The 
former course is the only one that can secure the 
claimant from interminable litigation, growing out 
of conflicting claims. It is also the only way in 
which the recipient can be effectually bound to the 
five years' occupation which the bill before Congress 
requires, before granting a patent ; for how could 
such occupation be proved, if the location of the 
claim were left indeterminate? At first sight, it 
seems reasonable enough that the Government 
should take action for the security of the recipient 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 95 

of ''a free homestead," though it reaps no direct 
advantage from the settler; but it must be remem- 
bered that the actual expense of surveying and 
locating grants alone, will not fall far short of forty 
cents an acre, and you must he taxed for the coat 
you wear, and the iron in the plough you follow, in 
order to pay the necessary expenses incurred for the 
pleasure of giving away land to the adventurous 
speculator and the beggar ! 

When you discover that this charge, in the pro- 
cess of time, must run through the survey of nearly 
1,400,000,000 of acres, I sincerely hope that you 
will begin to think, with me, that the people had 
better talce this vast trust out of the hands of Congress, 
and appoint, as I have suggested, a board, composed 
of representatives from each state, having power to 
apply the proceeds of sale to the emancipation of 
the slave, the extinction of state and school tax, and 
other great measures for the common benefit of the 
whole people. 



90 OURWHOLEDUTT 



CHAPTER V. 

FIRST DUTIES OF THE BOARD OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN 
RELATION TO THE EXODUS, 

Preparation of Africa for the reception of Immigranta — Preparation of 
Coloured Artizans and Teachers of Religion for Emigration. Adaptation 
of African Rivers to Internal Improvements — Relations of the River 
Niger with Sierra Leone and Liberia, and, through the Chadda, with 
tlie Nile — Vast field for Intei-nal Trade and Railroads — Grandeur of 
the Future of Africa, if properly assisted — The Execution of the Plan 
would discharge our Debt to the Black Man in full. 

The proposed Board for the management of the 
Public Domain having been organized, and its powers 
duly regulated, its first care will necessarily be the 
preparation of Africa for those who shall be sent 
there. I do not think that simply transporting 
men to a new country, with ten, twenty, or more 
dollars in their pockets to sustain them until thcy^ 
can find employment, is sufficient to secure them 
against want and disappointment. It is not thus 
that we can discharge our debt to the negro in a 
manly and Christian manner. From the very first, 
efforts should bo made to create a demand for 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 97 

labour in Africa. This must be accomplished by 
aiding the development of African resources in the 
beginning, by the application of a portion of our 
own. In a country not overstocked with horses or 
mules, nothing would seem more natural than that 
the Liberians should desire the early establishment 
of railroads. These should therefore receive the 
prompt attention of the Board. 

The very attempt to construct a railroad, would 
afford the means of living, immediately upon the 
landing of the immigrant ; and, at the same time, 
it would incite to a high pitch the spirit of improve- 
ment in agriculture and building. This would 
rapidly create other sources of employment — the 
certainty of employment being better than money 
in the pocket. The Board should at once turn its 
attention to the means that would aid the African 
immigrants in building up their city, and opening 
their farms as well as their railroads. Consen- 
taneously with these efforts abroad, should be the 
active employment of such means here as would be 
promotive of colonization. Among the more imme- 
diate measures of this class, independent of the 
encouragement of our iron works, should be the 
selection of a number of coloured men possessed of 
the necessary qualifications for making good archi- 
tects and engineers, and giving them a suitable 
G 



98 OURWnOLEDUTY 

education, in order to their being sent to Africa for 
the purpose of giving proper direction to labour upon 
their public roads and other undertakings. Such 
practical means as would present themselves for the 
instruction of negro mechanics, ought to be embraced. 
The boys of Liberia, as they grow up, ought to be 
provided with instructors in the mechanical arts. 
The whole difficulty in this matter lies at the 
threshold of the movement. Africa, with proper 
encouragement, would rise in a very few years, 
through her own energies, to the satisfaction of all 
her wants in these respects. 

Whilst preparations are being made, on the part 
of the constituted authorities, to qualify Africa for 
helping herself at home, by sending her such aid as 
will be physically useful to her, her moral and 
religious culture should not be left without provision. 
The former should be well prepared for, by well- 
regulated schools here; but, as has been already 
stated, the duty of providing for the latter may be 
safely confided to the several Christian sects, who 
cannot be indifferent to the introduction of the 
gospel on the vast continent whose vital interests 
we are endeavouring to serve. 

The wealthy American man of colour will cer- 
tainly be strongly induced to emigrate to Africa, as 
soon as he is satisfied that prompt and permanent 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 99 

measures for the effectual and complete emancipa- 
tion of bis race are about to be adopted ; for he has 
long been sighing for a distinct nationality, being 
bitterly conscious that here no refinement of man- 
ners, no wealth, no merit, can elevate him above 
the social degradation of his race, or place him on 
an equality with the lowest of ours. When he looks 
into the future for happiness for his family, his view 
is lost in doubt : when he seeks for his own, he is 
disappointed. 

How gladly will he embrace Liberia, when she 
makes sure promise of a home in which he can 
invest his means, and transact his business in the 
character of a freeman, while devoting himself to 
the dignified work of ennobling his long-oppressed 
country, and his depraved brethren ! To him will 
the necessity of railroads present itself at once, 
because he practically knows their use. He will 
either explore the country himself, or send those 
upon whom he can rely for information, to inquire 
respecting the soil, climate, rivers, and resources. 
He will direct his energies to the combination of 
African gold and African labour in the construction 
of roads, and the spreading of civilization. He will 
succeed; for the African has high capacities for 
industry, let who will deny it, because he does not 



100 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

more strongly display it in the absence of all high 
and exciting motive. 

Let us pause here, for a moment, to glance at the 
adaptation of African rivers to public improvements. 
From all the knowledge obtained from maps, travel- 
lers, the known course of rivers, and the legitimate 
deductions drawn from the general forms of conti- 
tents and mountain ranges, we have every reason 
to believe that a railroad could be made from Mon- 
rovia to the most important point upon the river 
Niger, with much less difficulty and far less expense 
than was attendant upon the making of the Central 
Eailroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburg ! 

The principal sources of the Niger drain, by a 
multitude of small streams, a table-land situated not 
far from the western coast of Africa, between Mon- 
rovia and Sierra Leone. This table-land extends 
over about one degree of latitude, and the various 
tributaries of this region coalesce into a single great 
trunk, at the distance of about two hundred miles 
from each of these centres of African civilization, 
and at a like distance from the sea. This chief trunk 
riins in a north-easterly direction, towards the 
southern edge of the great desert of Zahara, which 
yields it a few small contributions, and gradually 
curves it to the south-east and soutli. Along the 
most easterly part of its course, it receives tributa- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 101 

ries of considerable size from the eastward, some 
of which interlock with streams supposed to empty 
into Lake Tchad. From its junction with the largest 
of them, in about lat. 12° 50" north, the general 
course of the Niger is nearly due south, with one 
easterly bend, to its mouth, in about lat. 4° north; 
where it falls into the Gulf of Guinea, just east of 
the Bight of Benin. In about lat. 8° N., long. 7° E., 
it receives the largest and most important of its 
branches — the river Chadda or Tchadda — whose 
tributaries spring from the north side of the moun- 
tain range which separates it from the sources of 
the Congo, and from various widely-separated parts 
of Central Africa. Of these tributaries, the largest is 
supposed to be the outlet of the mysterious Lake 
Tchad ; and, by this route, they evidently interlock, 
either directly, or through the medium of the rivers 
emptying into that lake, with one of the largest 
tributaries of the White Nile. In its whole course 
of more than 2300 miles, the Niger bears a consider- 
able resemblance to a note of interrogation. By 
the construction of a railroad from Monrovia., to a 
point on this river near the junction of its early 
tributaries, the trade of the lesser streams, which 
are no doubt navigable for small boats, would be 
made available by the merchants of that young 
city; and, by continuing this road eastwardly, down 



102 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

tlie stream to deeper water, at no very great dis- 
tance, a position would be secured in a highly 
healthy and fertile region, possessing the same kind 
of advantages for surrounding trade that Pittsburg 
presents, at the confluence of the great tributaries 
of the Ohio river. Here civilization, led on by the 
American negro pioneer, would penetrate what are 
generally deemed Central African countries, once 
powerful, and awaiting but his advent to become so 
once more. The freedom of access of the civilized 
negro to these regions, and his influence for good 
when there, would be infinitely greater than those 
of the white man. The trade of the eastern tribu- 
taries of the Niger would soon be brought to centre 
at the terminus of the road for the time being, and 
thus the wealth of a vast interior south of the 
desert, and extending far beyond Timbuctoo, would 
be directed towards the Atlantic. At a later day, 
when free states shall extend eastward along the 
coast, till they embrace the mouth of the Niger, 
will ])e heard the iron steed, snorting on his fiery 
way along the Chadda, to the sources of the Nile! 

The exodus, promoted in the manner I have 
advocated, will inevitably lead to the populating of 
the region of the Niger at no distant day. And 
liere, in all probability, will be established the third 
of the future sisterhood of African free states, 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 103 

founded upon the American model. Imagination 
conjures up the ghosts of more, like spectres in the 
glass of Banquo, and loses itself in dreams of the hum 
of industry, and the "sound of the church-going 
bell " re-echoed from the " Mountains of the Moon." 
Such a state organization once formed in the 
neighbourhood of a powerful interior kingdom, and 
in the midst of plains, valleys, and mountain ranges, 
teeming with intertropical wealth, will the free 
people of that state imitate the example of our 
ancestors when they opened to Pittsburg, first a turn- 
pike, then a canal, and finally a railroad? Will 
they thus progressively and slowly complete their 
connection with Monrovia ? No ! They will spring 
directly to the best refinement of the age — the 
railroad. They will have within themselves the 
means to build it, without requiring from us any 
other aid than tools and iron, after we shall have 
sent them engineers, carpenters, masons, black- 
smiths, and other tradesmen. To judge of the 
progress of the American negro in Africa by that 
which has shown itself in tlie United States, would 
not be wise ; for he will begin at the point we have 
attained, by the aid of steam, within the last forty 
years. In this short time we have made more 
progress than five hundred years would have 
enabled us to accomplish without it. The American 



104 U R W li L E D U T Y 

African will not fall back upon our early progress. 
Let us suppose that, by any chance, our ancestors 
had found in the new home of their choice a race 
of men like our own — their brethren in short — but 
degraded far below them in civilization. Let us 
suppose them to have met this race, not as savages 
against whom it was necessary to raise the dagger 
in self-defence, but with a grasp of fraternal love 
and friendship : let us imagine them to have raised 
this people upon the platform of social equality. 
Let it be also supposed that, at the same time, they 
had a knowledge of the power of steam ; that they 
could have induced the natives to useful labour ; 
that they could have received from England iron 
rails — all the machinery necessary to build steam- 
boats and locomotives, as their sons are now^ doing 
— can we doubt that, at this moment, after three 
hundred years of settlement under such auspices, 
we should have railroads from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific Oceans? Can we doubt that Nebraska, and 
all the country both east and west of the Rocky 
Mountains, would now" be teeming with population, 
and the land divided into small portions, where 

" Evcrj rood of ground maintains its man ?" 

Will Africa, under circumstances like these, be 
slow in her progress ? Surely not. Her present 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 105 

position, aided in the manner I propose, would be 
even more favourable to rapidity of progress, than 
that of our ancestors in the United States, under 
the circumstances we have supposed. 

Long before these improvements are complete, 
Africa will be prepared safely to receive in large 
numbers, those children of idle and dissolute coloured 
parents, who may be unfitted by nature for the task 
of assisting in the business of the common schools ; 
but these will nevertheless carry away with them a 
due appreciation of American liberty, and the habits 
and opinions best calculated to teach a due respect 
and gratitude for this inestimable blessing, among 
the benighted and ignorant natives of their unhappy 
fatherland. 

All that I have yet proposed to be done for Africa, 
is not too much for us to accomplish. We have the 
means to do it, not only without injury, but with 
positive advantage to ourselves; and having it in 
our power to place ourselves in this enviable posi- 
tion, it becomes no less our positive duty than our 
proper pecuniary policy, to effect the measure. 
Other moral reasons might be adduced, if necessary, 
why we should accomplish this urgent purpose. We 
boast that we are in the enjoyment of privileges, 
both political and religious, superior to those of 
any other nation upon earth. We know we have 



106 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

removed, step by step, from the soil on which we 
have been vouchsafed so many blessings, one race 
of men, differing in all respects from our own ; and 
that, in so doing, that soil was made to drink their 
blood. In order to render their destruction more 
complete, another distinct race of men was brought 
into requisition. Such facts, however deplorable, 
have stamped themselves upon our history ; yet, in 
in the face of these facts, we have been favoured 
beyond measure in all things relating to our social 
enjoyment and temporal prosperity. 

Having attained to a point in national greatness 
where it becomes politic to be generous, and humane 
to be just, let us not forget that the price which 
humanity has paid for the blessings we enjoy has 
been the unmitigated slavery of one race of men, and 
the almost entire destruction of another ! Yes ! So 
completely has tlie American Indian been removed 
from our path, that, in a very few years, scarcely 
one of the race will be left to tell the history of his 
people, even by way of tradition. Its origin, its 
mission, its progress, its decaj-, its fall, in utter deso-^ 
lation and ruin — these will be the themes of many 
a writer; but where is he, "the monarch of the 
woods?" Such has been the manifestation of the 
Divine will ; such is the Divine manifestation of 
that Providence which has suffered a powerful 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 107 

nation to grow up in the short space of less than 
three hundred years, sta^iding npon the ruins of one 
distinct race, and the enslavement of another! 

In carrying forward the great work of the eman- 
cipation and redemption of Africa, charity claims 
hisiher consideration than is often allowed her. Her 
limits are too often circumscribed by the narrow 
circle of home. Charity can do much, money can 
do nothing, morally to compensate the African 
bondman for the wrongs he has suffered at our 
hands; for, in his degradation here, we have de- 
prived him of all noble objects of honest ambition. 
Charity claims that the African should be educated 
to a full understanding of the j)rinciples of our 
Government, in order that he may become fitted to 
appreciate the liberty which he has a just right to 
demand of us, and that he may be thus enabled to 
teach this liberty to his depraved brethren of another 
continent, when time and our tardy action shall 
have placed him where he can do it. In the prac- 
tice of this liberty, he will have a country as rich 
as our own, and will no longer want our money. 
In the practice of such good will to the American 
African, we shall cancel in full the debt we owe 
him, by having taught him how to j)lant kindred 
institutions in the land of his ancestry. 

When we look into the dark vista of African 



108 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

degradation and African bondage, and find that we 
can elevate the native African by emancipating the 
slave, at the small cost of a j)ortion of the proceeds 
of the now despised Public Domain — improving our 
own condition, the moral standing, and the prosperity 
of the nation by this very measure — shall we hesi- 
tate to render to the race which has so long and so 
faithfully served us, the means of unrestrained 
liberty and national independence ? 

Let us not even demand colonial vassalage. By 
so doing, we shall place another gem in the crown 
of American glory. Shall this thing be done ? It 
can be, if the people will it. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 109 



CHAPTER VI. 

TENDENCY TO NATIONAL DECAY THROUGH THE INFLUENCE 
OF SLAVERY. 

Interest of the People in Public Affairs, before the Revohition — What 
corrected the Abuses of those times — Similar Interest in our Early 
National Days — Enforcement of Law against the Disorderly — Honesty 
of Government, especially in relation to Public Lands, in successive 
Administrations, from Washington to Jackson — Commencement of our 
Rights on Indian Lands by Treaty — Proposal to claim Canada as an 
Indemnity for the Expenses of the British War — First budding of 
Pre-emption Laws — First Grants of Land for Internal Improvements and 
general Economy — Downward Tendency of Public Morals, from the 
Administration of Monroe to the Present Day, especially with regard 
to the Public Land Trust, and the Rights of Property and Nations — 
Large Purchases from the Indians — Loose Extension of the Pre-emption 
Laws, and its sad Effects — Commercial Expansion — Attempts to check 
mad Speculations in Lands — Agricultural Madness — Financial Ignorance 
of Government and People — Apparent Prosperity and Impending Ruin, 
causes thereof — Collapse of Business — Special Payments suspended — 
False Views and false Policy — Extravagance, Corruption, and increasing 
Abuse of the Public Domain — Attempts to extend Slave Territory — 
Mexican War — Assumption of Debts by Annexation — Presidential 
Usurpations — Proposal to offer unsold Lands for twenty- five cents per 
A.cre — Millions of Acres squandered — California applies for Admission 
into the Union — The Slave Question in all its Terrors — Attempts to 
dissolve the Union — Pre-emption Laws at the Bottom of these Evils — 
The Free Homestead Bill, to fling away the Patrimony of the People — 
The Inevitable and Fatal Consequences of our Present Territorial Policy, 
in Connection with the Permanence of Slavery. 

To show how terrible is the curse, how mighty 
the wrath of God, ujDon nations that fasten a con- 
vulsive grasp upon the slave, I cited the single 



110 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

instance of the bondage of the House of Jacob. I 
also showed that history proclaims the inevitable 
desolation of the nations that foster shivery for the 
indulgence of idleness, profligacy, and licentiousness; 
and that this institution tends fatally to enervate 
the powers of a people. I asked the question, 
whether this nation ought not to come to a pause, 
and inquire whether or not influences such as have 
led to the decay of other nations, were not operating 
upon ourselves. I now mean to show that we have 
departed from early usages in the administration of 
the Government, especially in that richest of inheri- 
tances, the Public Domain ; that the sohcitude and 
watchfulness of the people in relation to the admin- 
istration of public afiairs have declined; and that 
the institution of slavery lies at the bottom of 
many of the evils of which the people have just 
cause to complain, and for which they are loudly 
called upon to seek a rational remedy. 

To contrast our present course of conduct with 
that of the past, it is not necessary that I should 
go further back than a few years preceding the 
Revolutionary War, when the Whigs and Tories — 
both alike when in power — brought their political 
actions to bear oppressively upon the interests of 
the colonies, and, at almost every progressive step, 
some right was wrested from the people. The power 



TO THE BLACK MAN. Ill 

of the Government, through its vast patronage, was 
then such, that whether Whig or Tory was in the 
ascendant, even the election of new men to office 
did not change the current of oppression. The 
patriot stood appalled at the constant succession of 
new acts on the part of the King and the Colonial 
Legislatures, which wrested from him personal rights 
and rights of property, with a rapidity that threat- 
ened to impoverish him, and enslave his posterity. 
Have we not, in the progress of less than one cen- 
tury of independence, reached a point when it 
becomes obvious that the selfish ends of politicians 
are as destructive of national economy and the 
rights of the citizen as was the political power 
exercised by George III. and the Colonial Legisla- 
tures ? 

In those colonial times, new men were frequently 
elected to the Legislature. Governors who had ren- 
dered themselves obnoxious to popular censure were 
also frequently removed from office, and new men 
appointed, with a promise that such measures as 
were thought calculated to destroy the liberties of 
the people, and such as the people most bitterly 
complained of, should be repealed. Although new 
rulers were placed in authority, those objectionable 
laws were seldom repealed. On the contrary, the 
evils complained of, were fastened upon the people 



112 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

with aggravated force. The patriot of former times, 
in the workings of his own isolated thoughts, would 
continually exclaim, " How can these extortions and 
oppressions for the jDromotion of the selfish ends of the 
23olitician be arrested ?" In these patriots, (few in 
number at the time when the first approaches of des- 
potism were perceived,) was highly concentrated that 
far-sighted love of country which diffused itself in a 
greater or lesser degree through the minds of all the 
colonists, except such as looked with a more than 
prudent regard to the power and influence wealth 
would yield them, under the prostrating influence 
of colonial vassalage. 

But the office-holder and the politician found their 
interests secured by a close adherence to the power 
of the British crown ; because the patronage of the 
crown was daily augmented by a policy which 
brought the people into a direct and dangerous 
dependence upon the parent Government. The 
man of peace, and the prudent man, who regarded 
his own safety and that of his family, more than 
anything else — together with such as are ever found 
with the majority, caring not for right or wrong, 
provided they may win the smile of power — were 
readily induced to strengthen oppression by a ser- 
vile vote. The true patriot, as he stood isolated 
amidst this powerful array of selfishness, in deep 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 113 

solicitude for his country, was forced to exclaim, 
"Alas ! I am but a single man !" In a hope so for- 
lorn as this, men began to communicate their senti- 
ments to each other in the most guarded manner. 
They knew not that the feeling for the honour and 
glory of their country so deeply concentrated in 
themselves, consuming their hearts through anxious 
days and sleepless nights, was broadly scattered 
throughout the land, and was working, with greater 
or less force, in the minds of thousands, so as to fit 
each for his proper sphere of action in a great 
struggle for the overthrow of the sordid and selfish 
politician, and the elevation of his country to 
national independence. 

Yes, my countrymen ! When the burning lights 
that shone through the lowering clouds and the 
deep gloom of our political morning, brightening 
wdth hope the trial-beset path that led to the temple 
of Liberty; — when the brightest and purest first met 
within the circle of their firesides, to speak of 
the wrongs heaped upon their country ; — the first 
promulgation of the idea of independence startled 
them to their feet ; where, in all their manhood, they 
stood appalled at the temerity of the speaker, feeling 
the halter already around their necks! Upon 
retaking their seats, seeing the political party influ- 
ences by which tliey were surrounded, all tending 

H 



114 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

to rivet the chains of vassalage, and secure the 
desolation of their country, they asked, in their 
well-grounded fear, " Are we a Sodom or Gomorrah ? 
Can ten patriots be found to save the colonies?" 
Such was the terror that then suppressed the free 
expressions of patriotism throughout the land ! The 
small assemblages gathered around the fireside to 
escape intrusion were not known to each other. 
But, as oppression assumed a more open and deter- 
mined aspect, in the display of wealth and prodi- 
gality by the subservient politician at home, and 
the despotism of king and parliament abroad, these 
fireside patriots, by an affinity that naturally drew 
them together, became known to each other. The 
community of sentiment which this proximity 
revealed was soon found to be national. The fire- 
side discussion of national wrongs then ceased to be 
dreaded, as involving the question of personal 
treason. If treason to the constituted authorities 
was embraced in such debates, it was a national 
treason. 

From this moment, the wrongs done by the Go- 
vernment were proclaimed by the people every- 
where ; the means of redress, and the propriety of 
such means, were carefully examined ; appeals to the 
governing powers, of the strongest and most urgent 
character, emanated from the public meetings. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 115 

setting forth the evil operation upon themselves, 
and the pernicious influence upon posterity, of the 
oppressive laws so strongly contended for by the 
Government. At this moment of trial, when they 
were obliged to meet the hostility of Great Britain, 
exerted through her vast and subduing patronage, 
extending itself widely over the world, and especially 
throughout the colonies, they foresaw the enervating 
and deadening influence that the public spoils would 
exert upon the purely selfish. They saw that, by 
means of such, the debased in spirit and selfish in 
purpose would be induced to support the Govern- 
ment to the last. They knew that the politician, 
in the maintenance of a bad cause, would leave 
nothing untried, however disgraceful, to influence 
the timid and cautious, who are generally as selfish 
in private gains as the demagogue is in public spoils 
•or plunder. They knew, too, that such combined 
influences as these would operate upon all classes of 
men, with a force that must render their final success 
doubtful in the minds of many. With all these dis- 
heartening circumstances operating against them, 
but with a full conviction that they were right in 
their demands, truthful in their charges of wrong, 
and patriotic in the eflbrt to secure the independence 
of their country, they marched rapidly forward, in 
defiance of daily increasing encroachments, till the 



116 OUR TTHOLE DUTY 

time arrived when fifty-six of the noblest spirits of 
the day were delegated to form, for the oppressed 
colonies, a committee of safety known and desig- 
nated as the Continental Congress. 

These delegates, branded by the Tory who lived 
on the spoils of his country, as traitors, pledged 
" their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour" 
to the independence of their country. Traitors? 
No! This Congress united nearly the unanimous 
voice of a nation seeking its future independence 
through a course of the severest trials, heaped upon 
it by the despotism of the few ! No disasters, how- 
ever great, discouraged them ; nor did the patriotic 
army, with its noble chief at its head, shrink from 
the accomplishment of its purpose, though the line 
of its marches might be traced by the blood poured 
from the shoeless foot of the soldier. Our indepen- 
dencG ivas acJiieved, through poverty and toil and 
discouraging disasters, by men inspired with a 
patriotic hope that the pains and blood it cost would 
be regarded as the price of its future benefits, and a 
security for the maintenance of equal rights to the 
citizens of the confederated colonies. 

This Congress, after independence was accom- 
plished, soon found itself involved in serious diffi- 
culty, in directing the government of a countr}^ 
embracing a great variety of soil, climate, and 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 117 

interests, in consequence of its not having been 
endowed with any specific power to regulate those 
interests fpr the equitable advantage of the whole 
territory. This important defect was taken into 
consideration by the people, in public meetings 
throughout the confederation; and the means by 
which the conflicting rights of the various sections 
could be equitably adjusted, were fully discussed; 
so also were all the measures which led to the 
declaration of independence; and the Constitu- 
tion became as direct a result of the immediate action 
of the people as was the Revolutionary War. 

The Administration, during the first eight years 
of this constitution, was obliged, in every measure 
which it adopted, to look carefully forward into the 
progress of time, to see what would be its bearing 
on the future. The establishment of an army and 
navy was looked upon as necessary, to meet, in time 
of need, those urgent demands which are made upon 
every people when compelled to resist the aggressions 
of other nations, even when the means of defence 
are ample. But when the Father of his Country 
retired from the presidential chair, his solicitude for 
the future interests of his country was so deep, and 
his heartfelt anxiety so warm, that he could not 
retire without the expression of his feelings in a 
farewell address, through the Congress of the United 



118 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

States, to the whole people. How faithfully the 
cautions and advice in this fatherly address have 
been regarded, we shall see. 

The administration of John Adams increased the 
naval force of the United States, and augmented 
that of the army. In the most formidable war we 
ever had with the Indians — that in which Gen. St. 
Clair was defeated, and which Gen. Wayne brought 
to a close in the year 1795 — the Indians were so 
completely subdued as to secure to the United States, 
by treaty, the right to station upon Indian territory 
any portion of the American army which the Govern- 
ment might order there, for the protection of the 
country and the aborigines. This right was exer- 
cised, and portions of our army were so stationed 
at Forts Recovery, St. Mary, Brown, Finley, Meigs, 
Defiance, Wayne, and other points. But peace 
being fully established, the necessity and propriety 
of this increase of the army was denied in Con- 
gress, and by many of the leading newspapers in 
the country. 

A new and experimental government, looking to 
the interests of thirteen sovereign states and the 
future settlement of a Public Domain, was neces- 
sarily required to provide for vast expenses in de- 
fending and protecting that Domain against the 
Indians. The accomplishment of this duty de- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 119 

maaded more money than the Government could 
secure from the revenues arising from commerce, 
and some system of taxation became indispensable, 
in aid of the ordinary income. For this purpose, 
a direct tax, an excise, and stamp act were enacted. 
In addition to these, an alien law was passed, re- 
quiring of the foreigner a residence of fourteen 
years in the country before becoming entitled to 
citizenship. Portions of these tax laws soon be- 
came obnoxious to complaint; especially the law 
laying an excise upon whiskey ; and in Pennsylvania 
this law was resisted. The Father of his Country, 
who had been for some time in the well-deserved 
enjoyment of the ease afforded to a private citizen 
after retiring from his vast public trusts, was prompt 
in his exertions to secure the proper execution of 
the laws. He accepted the offer of commander-in- 
chief, and marched at the head of an army to put 
down the whiskey insurrection. To enforce the 
collection of taxes, and respect for the laws and 
the Government, a sedition law was also passed. 
This law was an error on the part of the Govern- 
ment. It had more effect in defeating and chang- 
ing the Administration, than all the others combined, 
though popular clamour endeavoured to render them 
all odious alike. 

The Administration was everywhere assailed. 



120 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

Liberty poles were erected in many parts of the 
country ; the cutting down of which, and the arrest 
of some persons who were active in raising them, 
led to so complete an organization of the Demo- 
cratic party, as to enable it to elect Thomas Jeffer- 
son to the Presidency, by a small majority, in the 
year 1800. The administration of John Adams 
was long pointed at as the reign of terror; and the 
demagogue, even now, to secure popular clamour 
against a candidate for office, will cry out — "Fede- 
ralist !" 

All matters, pro and con, connected with this 
administration, were discussed with such scrutinizing 
pertinacity, that a schoolboy who could read the 
newspapers could not fail to understand the merits 
of the questions at issue. No measure affecting the 
constitutional rights of the citizen could fail, in 
those days, to elicit a close examination by the 
whole people, not only with a view to its present 
bearing, but its future tendencies also. This " Vigi- 
lence is the price of Liberty ;" yet it will be seen 
how little we now regard enormities vastly more 
pernicious in their consequences than anything that 
occurred during the administration of John Adams, 
except the sedition law. 

But, I say, let every Administration do as did 
that of John Adanifs, in patriotically standing up 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 121 

for the execution of laws, against all popular cla- 
mour, until they are repealed. Let the people, as 
they did formerly, break down measures which they 
may be obliged, at a later day, to re-establish — as 
in the case of our defensive policy ; but let them, at 
least, discuss and agitate all measures, until they com- 
prehend them ! Any action is better than indifference 
and the tame resignation of the liberty, honour, and 
independence of the country, into the hands of 
irresponsible politicians ! Thus, and thus only, we 
can escape the censure of posterity for a faithless, 
slothful neglect of the lessons of our ancestors, and 
the high hope of the nation. 

Thomas Jefferson, in his administration, yielded 
by necessity to the unpopularity of the army and 
navy with the party then dominant. He was 
obliged to reduce the army to such a degree, as to 
render it incapable of protecting the lives of the 
frontier settlers against murder and devastation, in 
case of another Indian war. The Federalists, who 
saw deeper into the future interests and necessities 
of the country than their political antagonists, were 
compelled to witness with sorrow the laying up of 
nearly the whole navy, and the refusal to build 
more vessels, in despite of all the appeals they 
could make to change this course of policy; this 
party being in the minority. For the protection of 



122 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

commerce, a gun-boat system was established, which 
proved to be so very inefficient, that England, being 
in want of seamen while engaged in a war with 
France, and seeing the United States without ade- 
quate means of defence upon the element of which 
she claimed to be the mistress, trampled, with the 
greatest audacity, upon both our trade and our per- 
sonal rights. She impressed our seamen with 
impunity. But, whatever was done to resist the 
aggression of the British upon our commerce and 
our personal rights, was regularly laid before Con- 
gress according to law ; and, in 1807, an embargo 
was laid, as being calculated to deter the British 
from the impressment of our citizens into their 
service. This measure was enforced for only a very 
short time — not more than sixty days. It proved 
to be unpopular, and was not re-enacted. 

James Madison succeeded to the Presidency in 
March, 1809; and, during his administration, a 
Non-intercourse Act was passed, in the hope of 
inducing Great Britain to respect the rights of our 
citizens — this country being then very indifferently , 
prepared for war. War, however, was declared in 
1812, and continued upon land, lake, and sea, until 
the final battle was fought at New Orleans in 1815 ; 
in which battle this nation achieved one of the most 
bloodless victories on our part, when the result is 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 123 

compared with the loss of the enemy, that can be 
found upon record. 

But that which, in the history of this war, I 
conceive to be of the greatest importance to my 
present argument with the people is, that every 
subject in connection with it was discussed by the 
people themselves. Its causes and its aims were 
thoroughly understood. The country felt that it 
was based upon the rights of the American citizen ; 
and, for the maintenance of those rights, the people, 
like their ancestors, were then willing to peril all. 
But in the management of the negotiation for peace, 
by commissioners appointed by the President and 
the Senate, the selection of the men, the orders of 
the commissioners, their place of meeting with the 
British, and their whole proceedings during the 
negotiation, ivere laid before the people. Everything 
in connection with the terms of treaty was known 
to all the citizens ; and all discussed the prelimina- 
ries of the treaty, and the claims based thereon, 
without disguise. It was then maintained by some 
few, that, on just principles, the Canadas ought to be 
claimed as an indemnity for the expenses of the war; 
but the Government decided that the war was never 
intended to promote the acquisition of territory, and 
all that it claimed, all that the nation could in honour 
ask, had been achieved. This conclusion met the 



124 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

cordial approbation of the people; and the prelimi- 
naries of the treaty embraced no territory beyond 
the boundaries of the nation, as they existed before 
the war. Peace was declared throughout the 
country in the winter of 1815, a very few days ' 
after the battle of New Orleans. 

The expenditures of the war had embarrassed the 
finances of the country in such a way as to render 
it expedient that the Government should charter a 
Bank of the United States ; and the same Admin- 
istration that refused to re-charter the old " Federal 
Bank of the United States," now chartered one with 
a capital more than three times as great as that of 
the old Bank ! 

The Federalists, being the only party in opposition 
to the Democratic party up to this time, made feeble 
ojDposition to the first election of James Monroe. 
They had seen all that they had built up, as in their 
belief conducive to the interests of the country, 
pulled down, and again built up by the Democratic 
party ! So, having nothing left to contend for in 
point of principle, and not choosing to exert what 
might appear to be a mere factious hostility towards 
this incumbent, they sufiered the second election of 
this statesman to go by default, and it was nearly 
unanimous. The people sank down into a calm in 
relation to political matters, the like of which they 



TO TUE BLACK MAN. 125 

Lad not experienced within the preceding sixty 
years. But notwithstanding the quietude of this 
Administration, it was conducted upon the strictest 
principles of economy ; the national debt, which was 
caused by the war, was rapidly paid off; the land 
system was perfected in away to secure to each citizen 
his right in the Public Domain ; free gifts and pre- 
emption rights were guarded with the utmost care ; 
so that, in 1820, when pre-emptions were asked for 
in aid of canals and county-seats, one-quarter sec- 
tion was granted to each new county in the state of 
Ohio, for the purpose of erecting county buildings 
thereon. In the year 1822, ninety feet in width of 
land only was granted to the Illinois canal, con- 
necting the Illinois river with Lake Michigan. In 
the year 1824, a similar gi^ant was made to the state 
of Indiana, to connect the waters of the Wabash 
river with Lake Erie. In the canvass for a Presi- 
dent in the autumn of 1824, "William H. Crawford, 
John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Andrew 
Jackson were all presented as candidates. Neither 
of these having received a majority of electoral 
votes, the election of President came constitutionally 
before Congress. John Quincy Adams was chosen; 
and, upon his election, a violent party opposition 
sprang up, and the Administration was assailed from 
the first moment of its existence. Indeed, the charge 



126 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

of corruption by bargain was at once asserted by 
Gen. Jackson himself, he having had a plurality of 
electoral votes. This Administration was charged 
with the practice of corruptions of the deepest cast 
in connection with the "Federal" bank of the 
United States ; with unbounded extravagance i)i 
furnisliing the " East Room " of the President's House ; 
and, with other matters, faults connected with the 
expenditures of the public money on the part of the 
Government. On all sides, Gen. Jackson's heroism, 
virtue, and patriotism were extolled to the skies ; 
and such a popular clamour was raised throughout 
the country, that everything gave way before it. 
The day came when the " Augean stable was to be 
cleansed," and Gen. Jackson was elected President 
of the United States. When the smoke by which 
the administration of John Quincy Adams had been 
enveloped throughout its whole career was blown 
away, it was found that the expenditures of public 
money exceeded by a very little that of the preced- 
ing Administration ! It was shown that the National 
Debt had been so rapidly diminished, that, by the 
continuance of tlie same prudence and economy 
which had been observed during the four years of 
this dynasty, the National Debt would be liquidated 
within the succeeding four years. This necessary 
result followed during the Presidency of Gen. Jackson. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 127 

It was proclaimed that the National Debt was 
extinguished, and popular clamour attributed to 
the hero of New Orleans the policy by which this 
great end was accomplished. It was found that the 
transactions of the Government under Adams with 
the Bank of the United States, were of a strictly 
legal character, and that the " East Room," if fur- 
nished at all, was the reverse of extravagant in its 
dress and appearance. When the historian shall 
travel over the period of time at which I have only 
glanced, he will justly credit this Administration 
with having possessed as much purity of purpose, 
and with being controlled by as noble a spirit of 
patriotism as any that preceded it. 

In this very general outline of the history of past 
events, my object is to show that the action of the 
Government, and that of the people, notwithstanding 
the political calm that prevailed throughout the 
administration of James Monroe, was at all times 
calculated to promote the high advancement of the 
country, and maintain a full and perfect respect for 
the equal rights of property and persons ; that the 
difference of opinion between the Federal and Demo- 
cratic parties related only to the proper application 
of means to elevate the prosperity, happiness, ho- 
nour, and worthy distinction of the nation ; and that 
the continued pursuit of such a policy would have 



128 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

secured, to this hour, the just and equitable rights 
of the people, especially in the proceeds of the 
Pubhc Domain; while, by contrasting the corrupt 
and selfish conduct of the politician of succeeding 
Administrations with the patriotism of the past, I 
shall proceed to show how totally, and how fatally, 
that policy has been changed. 

In the year 1827, a law was passed granting to 
the state of Illinois a strip of land extending along 
the line of the contemplated Illinois canal, to the 
distance oi five miles on each side of this work, 
reserving each alternate section. A similar grant 
was also made in favour of the Wabash and Erie 
canal. These laws were urged upon the plea that, as 
the New York canal was completed to the city of 
Buffalo, the sooner canals were made to extend into 
the wilderness, from the upper end of Lake Erie, 
the better; for, that the effect of these improve- 
ments would be, to enhance the value of the remain- 
ing Government lands so greatly, that they would 
produce more money than the whole Domain in the 
absence of such necessary works. This was the first 
step made by Congress in granting land for purposes 
of internal improvement. In the year 1828, the 
Indian title to a tract of land generally known as 
tlie St. Joseph's Purchase, was extinguished. This 
tract extended from the most southern bend of Lake 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 129 

Michigan, in the state of Indiana, northward into 
the state of Michigan, and thence, eastward, to the 
Ohio state line. This land was of high value, 
being fine woodland, interspersed with prairie. 

The administration of Gen. Jackson went into 
operation in March, 1829. This Administration 
brought together the ultra Federalist and the aspir- 
ing Democrat, and in a common cause made friends 
of personal enemies. The "Augean stable was to 
be cleansed," and to do this, men heretofore holding 
the most oi3posite opinions united in this patriotic 
task. In the first year of this Administration, 
although pre-emption rights for lands had been pre- 
viously granted only with the utmost caution, and 
never to any great extent, a pre-emption law was 
passed, covering the prairie lands in the tract just 
mentioned. In the year 1832, a vast body of land 
lying north and west of the Wabash and Eel rivers, 
was purchased from the Pottawattamie Indians. 
The pre-emption right was extended to this land 
also. The treaty by which it was acquired differed 
from all preceding Indian treaties, in providing for 
certain " reserves," in terms calculated to hold out 
inducements for the largest private speculations, of 
the nature of direct frauds upon the Government ; 
and from this time forward, throughout this Admin- 
istration, the pre-emption laws were extended to all 
I 



130 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

purchases of land from the Indians. This system 
laid the basis of one of the most widely-extended 
and wildest land speculations ever known in the 
country, carried out by men alike regardless of 
private rights and the rights of the Government : it 
unhinged every department of business in the 
country. The means of access to this portion of 
the Public Domain was made easy through the 
New York canal and the Lakes. In the year 1835, 
it was stated to me that Laporte county, Indiana, 
had a population of 10,000 inhabitants, though the 
first cabin was built in the county only four years 
before. Chicago, where the first house was built in 
1831, had its thousands of inhabitants in 1835. 
Logansport then contained 1000 inhabitants, though 
the first edifice was constructed in 1832 ; and many 
other villages were found to have grown with like 
rapidity. The excessive rapidity of emigration into 
this country, together with the fact that every 
emigrant, even though an agriculturalist by profes- 
sion, was a consumer for eighteen months before he 
could, by his own exertion, secure the means of 
living for himself and family, caused the prices of 
flour and everything else to rise higher in this new 
settlement than in the city of New York ; so that 
we can fairly account for the importation of bread- 
stuffs into this country, to fill up the vacuum caused 



TO THE BLACK MAN". 131 

by the consumption in the interior, in the years 
1834, '35, and '36— though it should be the chief 
granary of the world. Nor were land speculations 
by any means confined to this spot: they were 
extended over the whole Public Domain. 

This mania for dealing in new lands, to the pre- 
judice of the manufacturing and other leading 
departments of business, was stimulated into the 
greatest activity by the forcible transfer of the 
public deposits from the United States Bank to the 
state banks J so that more of the public lands were 
sold in five years after the removal of these deposits, 
than had been taken up from the year 1796 to 
1833 ! — without having elicited upon the part of the 
people any close examination into the cause of this 
morbid excitement. It produced intoxication in 
commercial pursuits, and a feverish excitement in 
agriculture. It encouraged idleness in the adven- 
turer, and stimulated the capitalist and dashing 
speculator into a recklessness of consequences, for 
which no parallel can be found, except in the 
equally reckless administration of the Government. 

If a prudent regard for the true principles which 
should regulate the monetary operations of a country 
had marked the management of the national finances, 
instead of the war which was waged upon the Bank 
of the United States, to the destruction of the com- 



132 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

forts of the aged, the widow, and the orphan ; if, 
instead of placing tlie money within the grasp of 
speculating office-holders, the proceeds of the Public 
Domain had been administered with justice towards 
both the Government and the people, and in a man- 
ner consistent with the terms of the trust and the 
dictates of sound morals, we should not have had a 
suspension of specie payments almost on the same 
day that this Administration drew to a close. 

The operations upon the Public Domain in the 
years 1835 and 1836 became so extravagant, that 
the President of the United States attempted a par- 
tial check by issuing the specie circular, as it was 
called. This circular, or order from the Executive, 
required all lands to be sold for gold or silver, except 
that three hundred and twenty acres might be 
sold to any actual settler, payable in notes of a 
deposit bank ; all other revenues being payable in 
notes of these banks. This circular, like the 
removal of the deposits from the United States 
Bank, was proclaimed by popular clamour as an 
instance of the iron nerve of the President, and 
a proof that his course was governed by the love 
of country. Yes ! it was reiterated on all sides, 
that the patriotism of "the old hero" was so 
staunch, and his firmness so unshaken, that all 
dishonest men in place, all land and bank specu- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 1B3 

lators, would be arrested in tlieir course of obvious 
plunder. In such a light did the morbid devotion 
of the people to the hero of New Orleans induce 
them to view, through the fog raised by corrupt 
politicians, the patriotism of the President, at the 
very moment when he had permitted agriculture, 
the grand and leading interest of the country, to 
run into the wildest disorder, fomenting that disorder 
by his favourite measures ! Old farms were aban- 
doned, and new ones sought upon the Public Do- 
main. The mere loss of time to this interest from 
an emigration which obhged each emigrant to pur- 
chase his means of living for eighteen months, 
before his labours could be made productive, was 
the source of incalculable loss to this great interest. 
State stocks issued by the old states for constructing 
internal improvements, which alone rendered the 
public lands of such value as caused them to be 
grasped at with the ferocity of the tiger, were per- 
verted into the means for increasing the importation 
of iron and breadstuffs, by which commerce was 
inordinately inflated, and every department of busi- 
ness was thrown into a confusion such as boys often 
delight in creating, utterly forgetful of their want 
of power to correct the mischiefs they are recklessly 
perpetrating. 

By way of comparison, I would illustrate the 



134 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

effects of Gen. Jackson's administration by suppos- 
ing a large number of persons placed in a room 
heated by a furnace ; the temperature of the room, 
the furniture, &c., being in most proper order when 
they enter it ; and the orders to the stokers of the 
furnace being such that, if not understood by the 
guests, they must cause the apartment to be over- 
heated to a dangerous degree. In our case, the 
cause of the heat, lying at a distance from the room, 
did not evidently manifest itself to the party within ; 
a difference of opinion existed as to the cause of the 
undue temperature, and each maintained his theory 
with regard to it. But, none understanding the 
truth, the heat continued to operate with increased 
force, all the while, until there was imminent danger 
that the house would be burned to the ground. 
Meanwhile, the real cause of the mischief was 
simply this : — the stokers were constantly adding more 
fuel to the fire in the furnace below ! 

The Hero President retired from office, leaving an 
address of advice to the people, recommending 
patriotic motives for their guidance, and promising, 
by such means, the long continuance of such na- 
tional prosperity as existed at the time. But alas 
for human vanity ! His successor was obliged, in 
the short space of a few weeks, to call an extra 
Congress, to take into consideration the embarrass- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 135 

ment into which the monetary interests of the 
country were thrown ! This Congress met in the 
month of September following the inauguration of 
Martin Van Buren as President of the United 
States, (one of the persons who had been in the 
heated room, but has not yet been found willing 
publicly to acknowledge the true cause of the heat, 
if he has ever been able to detect it). In his mes- 
sage to this Congress, he says, " The history of trade 
in the United States for the last three years, affords 
the most convincing evidences that our present con- 
dition is chiefly to be attributed to over action in all 
the departments of business ; an over action deriv- 
ing, perhaps, its first impulses from antecedent 
causes, but stimulated to its destructive consequences 
by excessive issues of bank paper, and by other 
facilities for the acquisition and enlargement of 
credit." 

That "over-action" should be produced by ante- 
cedent causes, which causes themselves consisted in 
"over-action," is not good logic. It is over-action 
j>roducwg over-action. And that this over-action 
should be stimulated by effects growing out of over- 
action, is still worse; for, the principles by which 
bank-issues are governed would no more permit this 
result than they would enable them to remedy 
the result when produced. The truth is, that banks 



136 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

may coidract their business at pleasure ; but an ante- 
cedent cause must exist, to enable them to expand! 
Had the President referred to the necessities of the 
immigrant upon the public lands ; to the over-action 
in selling which he was invited to by pre-emption 
laws ; — had he referred also to the demands created 
by the building of steamboats, canal-boats, and 
every other appliance for the accommodation of this 
vast immigration ; to state credits inflating commerce 
by the importation of breadstuffs, and iron, and 
silks in excess j then, to the demands that the 
public works in progress at the time created; — had 
he given attention to the really steady and prudent 
operation of the United States Bank — directing his 
glance rather to the interests of its stockholders 
than to the demands of rapacious politicians ; — and 
had he given a due consideration to the argument 
used in connection with the removal of the deposits ; 
namely : that " now state banks could supply the 
wants of the people " — he would have shown, in 
the plainest possible manner, how bank fiicilities 
were demanded by the antecedent causes created by 
the Government, in driving the leading departments 
of business into morbid action, in a false direction ! 
In the first annual message of the President to 
Congress, (he still not understanding the causes of 
disaster to the country; and the speculations in land 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 13T 

still running high, notwithstanding the suspension 
of specie payments ;) it was recommended that the 
prices of land should be graduated ; a loM-er price 
being asked for such as had been in the market for 
fifteen years, and still remained unsold. Doubtless, 
ever}'^ politician and land speculator connected with 
the Government understood the plausible fallacy of 
this suggestion. In fact, if the recommendation had 
been carried into effect, it would have facilitated the 
winning of the largest kind of profits by the specu- 
lator ; for the following reasons : — 

I have said that strips of land five miles in width 
along each side of the Wabash and Erie, and Miami 
canals had been granted to these canals. Now, 
when the plan of graduation was proposed, the 
strips next adjoining these belts, extending in length 
one hundred miles upon the former, and seventy 
on the latter, and altogether amounting to milHons 
of acres, had already been in market fifteen years! 
These canals have their course along the Maumee and 
Auglaize rivers. The five mile grants upon each 
side of these were, of course, taken out of market 
in order to obtain for them the highest price when 
the canals should be completed -, this being the only 
way to make them properly available for meeting 
the expenses of construction ; and some of these 
lands were ultimately sold for more than twenty 



138 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

dollars per acre. Meanwhile, the belts on either 
side of the five mile tracts, thus reserved, remained 
unsold, because those river-belt lands were not in 
the market ; such lands, for many reasons, being 
always taken up first in a new country. But any 
canal, at a distance of eight hundred miles from 
the city of New York, confers increased value on 
all adjoining lands, to the distance of ten, twenty, 
or even thirty miles. Had the proposition of the 
Executive been carried out, the unsettled belts, 
though soon to be enormously enhanced in value, 
would have been made purchasable at mere nominal 
prices, and would have been picked up by great 
speculators, (who could afibrd to await the settle- 
ment of the country,) at twenty-five or fifty cents per 
acre ! Besides ; there were other millions of unsettled 
acres in the Domain that, at that time, had already 
been in market for fifteen years, and unsold, not 
because they were less fertile than other lands, but 
simply for the reason that "Indian reserves" and 
other natural causes retarded their settlement. It 
is obvious that, just to the degree that the proposed i 
nrrangement would have enriched the mere specu- 
lator, at the future expense of the settler, it would 
have tended to impoverish the Government. Under 
the unwise if not dishonest policy which has been 
now sketched out, by the time this Administration 



TO THE BLACK MAN". 1B§ 

drew to a close, the disasters which it and its imme 
diate predecessor had brought on the country, had 
sunk state and other credits, and business of all 
kinds, to the most depressed condition. The yearly 
expenditures of the Jackson and Van Buren dynas- 
ties rose from $14,000,000 (the amount in John 
Quincy Adams's administration,) to $20,000,000, 
130,000,000, and even as high as $40,000,000 ! 

The people were now made to feel that public 
affairs had been mismanaged. "Tippecanoe and 
Tyler too," together with log cabins and barrels of 
hard cider, were brought by another popular cla- 
mour into the election canvass. Gen. William Henry 
Harrison was elected President, but died shortly 
after his inauguration; and John Tyler, by the 
right of his election as Vice-President, became Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

The active business of the country had been pros- 
trated in the dust. Speculations of all kinds had 
apparently ceased. But, did this state of things 
determine the new set of politicians introduced into 
the administration, to carry out such reforms as 
would be calculated to bring back the course of 
Government to the standard which it maintained 
from the beginning, up to the time of the election 
of Jackson ? No evidence of such an intention was 



140 OUR TTIIOLE DUTY 

made to appear. The passage of a tariff law seemed 
to have the effect of reviving the business of the 
country, but the rapacity of the pohtician for the 
spoils of office, (as the public funds were still regarded,) 
continued, to all seeming, as grasping and uncompro- 
mising as it had been during the two preceding 
Administrations. No reforms in the expenditure of 
money were effected. What most distinguished the 
new dynasty was, that it took measures to bring the 
state of Texas into the Union, on its own prompt- 
ing, and when the majority of the people had neither 
examined into the necessity of annexation, nor 
desired it. This whole matter was arranged for the 
people by Texan bond-holders and slave-holders, 
for the joint, but exclusive benefit of both. To bond- 
holders, annexation on condition that the United 
States should assume the Texan indebtedness, was 
of the highest importance. The debt of Texas 
amounted to several millions of dollars. The bonds 
had been sold in the market for much less than par 
value. The speculators in these bonds secured vast 
fortunes by annexation. But that which seemed to 
cause the most bitter feeling against the measure 
was, that it increased the number of slave states. 
Public land speculations produced little or no excite- 
ment during this Administration. 

When President Tyler retired from office, James 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 141 

K. Polk was inaugurated. The people chose him 
in preference to Henry Clay, notwithstanding that 
he had taken a conspicuous part, during the admin- 
istration of Gen. Jackson, in the support of measures 
that had a tendency to prostrate the credit of the 
country. This Administration soon adopted mea- 
sures by which it might draw as largely upon the 
public purse as its predecessors had done. It seemed 
as if the principle that " to the victors belong the 
spoils," was destined to be maintained as fully in 
force as when it was first proclaimed. Change of 
parties in the Government had no tendency to pro- 
duce reform of abuses. As one or the other of the 
political factions of the day obtained the ascendency, 
it seemed only necessary to repeal a tariff, or ad- 
vance some other mere measure that was contended 
for as a principle, in the electioneering canvass. 
This Administration determined upon a war with 
Mexico, and absolutely brought it about in a manner 
without precedent at any previous period during the 
existence of this Government. 

The first fact that forces itself on our attention in 
connection with this war is, that Mexico owed the 
United States some millions of dollars, the payment 
of which had been urged, on the part of the United 
States, for several years. Mexico, in the meantime, 
was reduced to bankruptcy by internal dissension 



142 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

and strife ; so that she was too poor to make pay- 
ment, and too weak to resist the power which the 
Administration was able to bring to bear in order to 
subdue her. Political jealousies also rendered her 
armies unreliable; and such was her whole condi- 
tion, that she presented an easy conquest. Had the 
California gold been known to her, doubtless the 
pretence of the war would have been removed. 

Another and most important point in relation to 
this war presents itself; which is, that the President 
concentrated the army u|)on the Rio Grande while 
Congress was actually in session, without making 
known to that body the disposition he was making 
of the army, or the fact that Mexico, seeing the 
warlike demonstration, was also marching her 
forces towards her frontier, to resist the invasion of 
her territory, if such was contemplated. These 
armies met in hostile array ; and then only was 
Congress called upon to declare war against Mexico, 
and vote appropriations to carry this war forward, 
chiefly upon the plea of indemnity. 

Could James Madison have concentrated the 
American army upon the frontiers of Canada, and 
involved the people in a war with England upon so 
slight a pretence ? No ; he could not have done it ! 
The debasing influence of Government patronage 
was not felt or known to the Consiress of 1812. It 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 143 

required the full force of this influence, brought to 
bear upon the politician, to induce an almost unani- 
mous submission to the will of the Dictator of this 
war ! Fourteen Patriots voted against the appro- 
priation. The spirit that induced this vote finds an 
echo in the hearts of a large class of American 
citizens ; but, under the reign of partisan politicians, 
this class is as powerless to accomplish a reform of 
abuses, now and here, as were the patriots who lived 
in the period just prior to the Revolutionary War, to 
resist the encroachments of British oppression, while 
communion of sentiment was unknown to exist 
among them. But when this union of sentiment 
was discovered to our forefathers of those trying 
times, the patronage of the Government, and the 
selfishness of the politician had to yield, and give 
place to the might and majesty of the people. Nor 
will the daily wrongs that Congress commits against 
the people cease, until the people shall determine 
that the rights of states and the equal rights of all, 
shall be respected. Before the Revolutionary War, 
and during that fearful and bloody struggle, the con- 
flict between the citizen contending for his equal 
rights, and the despotism of the office-holder, was 
terrible even to contemplate ; but, to secure the equal 
rights of all now, nothing more than a proper use of 
the ballot-box is necessary. 



144 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

A third fact is ; that, upon the conclusion of this 
war, no indemnity was claimed for the five millions 
which Mexico owed us, nor for the seventy or eighty 
millions the war cost us ; nor for the vast treasure 
of American blood that crimsoned the soil of Mexico. 
All ! all was waived for the acquisition of territory ! 
Nor was even this an indemnity; for, at least as 
much money was paid for this territory as would 
have purchased it without a war ! 

The treaty by which peace was restored was 
secured by a private agent of the President, under 
instructions dictated by him, independently of Con- 
gress, and was as suddenly sprung upon the Senate 
for ratification, as the necessity for money to carry 
on the war had been upon the House of RepreseU' 
tatives. 

How very progressive is modern Democracy! 
But, upon what plea, other than a gross assumption 
derogatory to the people, if not destructive of their 
rights, could the Executive make a purchase of 
territory, or enforce a war of any kind, without the 
knowledge of Congress? 

I tell you, my countrymen, that when a President 
of the United States can determine war or peace on 
the principle of a mere dictator, with no fear of any 
higher authority, — no dread of the majesty of the 
people, acting through their constitutional agents, — 



TO THE BLACK MAN 145 

but, by the mere force of Government patronage — 
the time has come when you ought to inquire what 
are the influences that sustain so great a wrong to 
yourselves as has been the Mexican war ! 

The motives which induced the perpetration of this 
wrong, the future will reveal. If the purposes Avere 
the extension of slavery into California, that object 
has been signally defeated by the discovery of gold. 
But, however much this discovery may have dis- 
appointed the slave interest, yet it is the only salve 
that covers the festering sores of this national 
" fillibustering." 

This Administration could not resist the tempta- 
tion to continue, and endeavour to increase the 
abuses in the management of the public lands. It 
suggested that, if those lands which had been in 
market a given number of years, should be reduced 
to tiDenty-five cents ]per acre, a large sum of money 
would be secured to meet the expenses of the w^ar ; 
thus making evil the parent of evil. 

I cannot resist the temptation to enlarge a little 
here on the effects which would be produced by the 
plans of graduation in the price of public lands, 
w^iether that suggested by Martin Van Buren, or 
that of James K. Polk, who proposed to fix the 
minimum at twenty-five cents per acre. 

At the time when this graduation was first pro- 
K ' 



146 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

posed ; that is, during the Presidency of Martin Van 
Buren ; the lands that had been in market for fifteen 
years and still remained unsold, were those adjoining 
the five-mile strips of canal grants, which have been 
alluded to in the foregoing pages, together with a 
vast number of acres adjoining Indian reserves in 
the states of Ohio and Indiana. The whole country 
in the immediate neighbourhood of these reserves 
had become settled, except a belt around each, some 
five or six miles in width, which was left unoc- 
cupied ; few persons being willing to submit to a 
closer proximity to the Indians, although negotia- 
tions for their removal were actually in progress at 
the time. The lands surrounding the reserves, and 
lying at a distance from them, were readily bought 
at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre ; yet 
they were of the same character with those which 
were to be brought under the graduated price. Of 
course, it is obvious how the speculator would profit 
by such a law. It now requires $125,000 to buy 
100,000 acres; but under the proposed new law, 
this sum would buy half a million of acres. 

When the reserves were brought into market a 
few years afterwards, the land sold, in many in- 
stances, for more than ten dollars per acre ! Of 
-course, those nearest the settlements were held to be 
of higher value. Tlie lands that, at this present 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 147 

time, have been in market for fifteen years and 
more, and which are therefore treated as worthless 
by the designing, are really of as great or still 
greater value ; as is proved by the recent history 
of the swamp lands given to the states in which 
they lie. These swamp lands may be considered 
as among the best in the country ; especially those 
in the states of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, 
Wisconsin, and Missouri. These are among the 
richest grass lands of the West. When drained, 
which in most instances can readily be done, they 
constitute the most productive corn lands in the 
Domain ; and when the country shall be fully 
settled, (and it is rapidly approaching this condition,) 
these will possess double the value of any others in 
their vicinity. Many of these tracts have indeed a 
soil so rich in mould, in consequence of the decay of 
their annual product of vegetable matter, that the 
earth itself will prove, in the course of time, an 
invaluable manure for the land immediately sur- 
rounding them ! These swamps or unappreciated 
tracts are generally found upon what may be called 
the table-land ; except where, as sometimes happens, 
they occur at the confluence of streams, or where, 
as is frequently the case, they lie along the course 
of streams, like the marshes ordinarily found on the 
margins of rivers emptying into the ocean. The 



148 OUR VII OLE DUTY 

reader is aware that sucli marshes are now among 
the most highly-prized grounds in the country. 

The table-land of which I speak divides the 
waters of the Lakes from those of the Mississippi 
river. This region is very extensive; and, as the 
smallest streams generally take their rise in a 
swamp, the land capable of being thus redeemed 
amounts to millions of acres ! The swamps upon 
this vast table-land are of all sizes, from a few acres 
up to 150,000 acres. The smaller swamps — those 
containing 1000 or even 2000 acres, or less — when 
found in the settled portion of the Domain, are 
generally bought up by the farmers who have 
established themselves around them; each being 
anxious to secure a portion of such valuable meadow 
and pasture ground for the benefit of his upland. 
But where swamps are much larger, the settlers 
have heretofore purchased mainly on their edges; 
and the settlements around them enjoy, at present, 
all the advantages of hay and pasture ground, with- 
out being obliged to purchase it; because, until a 
joint effort at drainage is made by the neighbours, 
or until some public aid is extended for this purpose, 
these wet tracts are not considered purchasable. 
But ways and means may be readily found to blow 
away ledges of rocks crossing the streams which are 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 149 

the outlets of tlie swamps, and then these lands 
will be found to rise enormously in value. 

As has been already hinted, all these rich tracts 
have been unconditionally granted by Congress to 
the several states in which they lie. I feel but 
little disposition to complain of this appropriation, 
which, at least, secures their real value to the 
public, instead of squandering it upon private 
speculators, though it would be difficult to explain 
on correct moral grounds, the action of Congress in 
the case, when viewed as the common trustee of all 
the states, under the original deeds of cession. The 
extent of the donation may be guessed at from the 
fact that some of these swamp lands, all of which 
it was proposed to sacrifice at twenty-five cents per 
acre, have since been actually sold d^t fifty dollars 
per acre ; nor is it at all improbable that other lands 
may hereafter lie unsold on the market for fifteen 
years, though likely, in a few years more, to be 
enhanced two hundred per cent, in value. Many 
tracts are so circumstanced at present. 

Many persons suppose that it is necessary to go 
to the Land Office within the district, in order to 
purchase Government lands. This is a great mis- 
take ; and, to remove the impression, I will narrate 
a queer occurrence that took place in the City of 
Washington, during Gen. Jackson's administration. 



150 OUR TT HOLE DUTY 

While one set of the friends of that President were 
extolling him throughout the country for his stern 
patriotism in directing the issue of his Special Cir- 
cular, another set of his friends were at Washington, 
buying lands in large quantities with one single heg 
of specie ! The way it w^as done was this : — one 
set of speculators borrowed the specie and bought 
land : the Land Office deposited the keg in the 
bank. Another set then re-borrowed it, and pur- 
chased more land ; and, in this way, the keg was 
carried from the bank to the Land Office, and back, 
at each transit virtually embezzling more land, until 
it became so familiar in the sight of the citizens of 
Washington, that even the boys would cry out, 
" There goes the treasury keg !" This is the man- 
ner in which the patent friends of the poor man 
occasionally find means to promote his interests ! 

I recollect travelling one morning through a dense 
forest, upon a very bad road, in the state of Ohio. 
I met a wagoner with three horses attached to his 
W' agon — a man on horseback, with a musket or 
rifle on his shoulder, on each side of the wagon — 
and the Eeceiver of public money at the Land 
Office, inside of the wagon, poising a musket with 
fixed bayonet. As I was acquainted with the 
Receiver, he told me, in the course of conversation, 
that he had a wagon-load of specie, which he 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 151 

intended to deposit in the Clinton Bank of Colinnbus. 
A few days after, I saw Clinton Bank notes refused 
for land at the Land Office ! It appeared to me that 
the whole operation was like trusting with the care 
of your silver, a man whose note you would refuse 
to take in payment of a sale of property ! At all 
events, the Specie Circular was rendered, in this 
way, of little value in checking land speculations. 
I need say no more to prove how difficult it must 
be for a poor man to secure lands at twenty-five 
cents an acre, while they are being rendered so 
highly valuable to the speculator who can affi^rd to 
wait a few years, by the rapidly increasing settle- 
ments around them, and the projects for internal 
improvements which the designing politician has 
power to hasten or delay, as his interest may guide 
him. The honest administration of the Public 
Domain for the public good would dictate that the 
Government should make appropriations for the 
draining of the swamp lands of the Domain, from 
time to time, as the natural settlement of the 
country calls them into requisition for other uses 
than mere common pasture ground ; and the lands 
should be charged with the expense of this drainage. 
In this way, the actual settler would acquire them 
at a much cheaper rate than through the hands of 
speculators purchasing them at twenty -five cents an 



152 U R W n L E D U T Y 

acre, with a view to winning large future profits 
from the farmer. 

That such unremitting efforts should be made to 
sacrifice this vast public interest, can only be ex- 
plained by the facility which great capitalists and 
corrupt politicians enjoyed under the system of fore- 
stalling, almost gratuitously, the immensely increased 
value to be given to the lands by projected railroads, 
and for which the actual settler could not afford to 
wait. Mr. Polk's administration closed its career in 
the midst of expenditures as prodigal as those of 
any that preceded it. 

Gen. Z. Taylor, the hero of Buena Vista, suc- 
ceeded to the Presidency after James K. Polk. In 
the early days of this Administration, California 
asked to be admitted as one of the states of the 
Union. This application produced an excitement 
upon the subject of slavery, such as the country had 
never before witnessed. Men in the North and in 
the South, with unblistered tongues, openly avowed 
the intention of effecting a disunion of the states ! 
A compromise was effected between the sections by 
that noble patriot, Henry Clay, that brought about 
a degree of good understanding satisfiictory to all 
who desire nothing more f)r their country, for 
themselves, and for their posterity, than that these 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 153 

United States should continue to harmonize in union 
to the latest period of time. 

Upon the death of Gen. Ta^dor, Millard Fillmore 
succeeded to the Presidency, in July, 1850. This 
Administration is not marked by any efforts to 
reform abuses, either in the expenditure of money 
or the management of the Public Domain. Like its 
immediate predecessors, it suffered the squandering 
of the public lands as grants to states, counties, and 
railroads, to the extent of millions of acres. 

Franklin Pierce was inaugurated President of the 
United States in March, 1853 ; and, during the first 
session of Congress, the House of Representatives 
voted a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, as a 
free gift to all who can and will accept of it. 

The immense riches we possess in the Public 
Domain, which, if applied for the benefit of all, 
especially in the way I have indicated, would free 
us from most of those threatening evils which are 
fearfully hastening us on the inevitable march of 
national decay, has induced me to offer the foregoing 
comparison, to show how carefully and equitably 
this Domain was guarded for the promotion of vast 
national objects, up to the time when Gen. Andrew 
Jackson was elected to the Presidency ; and with 
what pertinacity, since that time, it has been squan- 
dered and misapplied for the benefit of the few. To 



154 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

me it appears plain, that if the lands, yet remain- 
ing unsold, should be graduated in price according 
to their real value, and sold in proportion to all actual 
demands for settlement, speculation would cease 
upon the Public Domain, and, in the end, the indus- 
trious farmer, in whose hands alone these lands can 
be rendered valuable to the country by their pro- 
ductiveness, would obtain them at a cheaper rate than 
by reaching them through the intermediate agency 
of speculators, in the " free gift " scheme. 

Having already seen that the pre-emption laws 
really lay at the root of all the disasters of the 
country in the year 1840, it would be folly, if not 
madness, after the experience w^e have had in these 
pre-emption laws, to attempt the system which looks 
to free gifts of one hundred and sixty acres, on the 
false pretence of benefitting the poor man. The 
true policy of our Government consists in a strict 
adherence to the fundamental principles of the Con- 
stitution, whereby all citizens are acknowledged to 
possess equal rights in relation to the national 
property, as well as to political protection. Let us, 
then, repeal all laws which have a partial bearing ; 
aiming, with singleness of purpose, at the enactment 
of such only as will secure the greatest interests, and 
sustain the equal rights of the whole people. The 
result of this general policy cannot fall to bo uni- 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 155 

versally beneficial upon every interest. Let the 
Public Domain become settled by the force of pro- 
gressive population, as dictated alike by reason, 
justice, and the voice of nature ! A population that 
doubles itself every twenty-five years, will not be 
long in bringing our Public Domain under cultiva- 
tion, without causing any violent reaction upon the 
interests of the country. But more especially would 
the peculiar applications I have proposed for the 
Public Domain enhance this general beneficial 
result. Under such a course of action, we should 
soon see large towns growing up in the southern 
states, from the enlargement of the means of 
mechanical labour ; commerce would no longer have 
the efiect of concentrating the business interests of 
the country into one or two large capitals; the 
Atlantic cities of the South would rise to a condition 
of prosperity approaching to that of those of the 
North ; the interior towns would flourish in all of the 
states ; and, by ofiering to all the means of happiness, 
without the necessity of too closely concentrating 
the population at any one point, they would secure 
us against the social and political evils which are 
the necessary grow^th of all large cities, whilst we 
should be more generally placed in the most enlarged 
enjoyment of the good connected with them. 



156 - U R AT H L E D U T T 

The institution of slavery, when looked at in all 
its bearings upon ourselves, either within our 
boundaries, or at a distance beyond them, is of a 
character that must be fully inquired into before we 
can understand the magnitude of the evil we are 
nursing for the destruction of the peace, safety, and 
happiness of the nation. If, in this inquiry, it has 
been proved that the prosperity of the nation is 
endangered by this institution, then the most appro- 
priate national means to remove the evil, ought to 
be used with the greatest energy, upon the prin- 
ciple of the high natural law of self-preservation. 
But while the application of this law is made the 
^ basis of national action, neither justice nor humanity 
must be lost sight of; especially when a captive is 
to be dealt with. The nature of the captivity must 
be duly considered, and the security of all the safe 
and practicable immunities of the dependent must 
be strictly guarded by national honour. If the cap- 
tive have any rights, whether by race or nation, 
then we cannot deal with him ])eT8onalhj in protect- 
ing these rights. The honour and dignity of the'' 
nation require that he should be dealt with nationally, 
or generically. 

I contend that the brute force by which the Afri- 
can was torn from his native land does not destroy 
his nationality of character, any more than the cap- 



TO THE BLACK MAN, 



ture of an enemy in war would destroy the nation- 
ality of the captive. But this brute force gives a 
peculiarity to African captivity that does not belong 
to captivity occurring where a formidable resistance 
is made, and where, if justice is not done to the 
vanquished, that justice will be demanded as a 
national right by the commonwealth of nations, 
agreeably to the doctrines of international law. 
But now, when nearly all the civilized nations of 
the earth have united in the determination that this 
brute force shall no longer prevail against Africa, I 
contend that the people of the United States are in 
honour bound to decide what this African captivity 
is; whether it is a merely personal captivity, or 
whether abstract justice still secures to the African 
his national rights, notwithstanding his present 
inability to maintain them. 

If the brute force that brought the race amongst 
us does not destroy its national rights, then, as the 
fundamental laws of the Union do not confer upon 
Congress the power to decide the question of African 
captivity, I have proposed that it shall take steps to 
secure a national convention to decide upon the 
actual condition of the slave, and that this conven- 
tion, if it should determine to restore the African 
to his nationality, should at once organize a Board 
of Trustees for the government of the Public Do- 



158 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

main; the moiety of the proceeds of which are at 
once sufficient and highly appropriate to the task 
of restoring the American African to his native 
land. This I propose as absolutely essential to the 
preservation of the peace, the safety, the happiness, 

THE PROSPERITY, THE MORAL DIGNITY, AND THE HONOUR 
OF THE NATION. 

But, should the Congress of the United States 
refuse to aid in bringing about the application of the 
necessary portion of the riches derivable from the 
Public Domain, to the purpose of securing to the 
African his nationality, and to this country the fame 
and glory proper to a consistent. Christian and 
humane people; should it prefer to confer these 
riches upon the land speculator ; should the people 
agree to submit to this unprofitable, unholy, and 
unpatriotic decision, and refuse, in their sovereignty, 
to take the necessary steps to secure the repeal of 
such squandering laws as have already passed the 
House of Eepresentative of the United States at the 
present session; should they rather choose to shut 
their eyes upon the encroachments of a corrupt 
Administration, as they did during the approach 
and consummation of the declaration of war against 
Mexico ; should they, in sleepy and enervated apa- 
th}', look upon the subjugation of their rights with 
a sluggard indifference ; should they, in addition to 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 159 

all this, look upon the brute force which is made to 
bear upon the African within our borders, and which 
wrested him from his native land, as being compat- 
ible with the dignity and honour of the nation ; 
should they determine to regard his natural rights 
with as much indifference as they regard their own 
sovereign and republican rights, in spite of the noble 
evidence which Liberia has already given of its 
capacity, when enlightened, for self-government : — 
then I proceed to examine, not only the probable 
result of such ignoble action upon the downward 
progress of our own Government, but also, and more 
especially, the inevitable future of slavery in the 
United States, if rendered permanent by our apathy 
and corruption. 

In relation to our own Government, it has been 
shown that lawlessness is now permitted to riot in 
defiance of statutes by which the acts of the outlaw 
are declared to constitute trespass or treason, as the 
case may be ; that the Government has not the 
power nor the will to punish such offences ; that the 
power to do so is lost by the undue extension of 
territory, while this extension of territory continues 
to be sought for by unjustifiable means, as has been 
shown in the annexation of Texas and the acqui- 
sitions secured by the Mexican War — all with a 
view to the extension of slave territory. The same 



IGO OUR WHOLE DUTY 

thing is proved by the attempts, of a most unlawful 
character, which have been recently made upon the 
Island of Cuba, and upon Sonora and Lower Cali- 
fornia, by citizens of the United States — these 
unworthy traitor citizens undoubtedly pursuing their 
schemes with a twofold anticipation : first, that, by 
the annexation of these provinces to the United 
States, they would increase the area of slave terri- 
tory, and secondly, that a rich harvest would be 
reaped from their own previous creation of new 
state debts, wdiich, like that of Texas, might be 
afterwards assumed by the United States, to their 
dishonest profit. 

That these trespasses upon the rights of other 
nations w^ill continue so long as the laws against 
such transgressions are not strictly enforced, cannot 
be doubted. It is far more than probable that the 
Island of Cuba and all Mexico may be brought under 
the sovereignty of the United States by just such 
means as were resorted to in Texas, especially if 
the United States should consent to pay the debts 
which these traitors to their country, the filibusters, 
contract, by issuing bonds carrying with them an 
exorbitant premium. If this policy of the acquisi- 
tion of territory is not arrested, and the Island of 
Cuba and Lower California should be annexed with 
the intention of extend in o; the limits of slave tcrri- 



• TOTHEBLACKMAN. 161 

tory, (which would be the inevitable consequence 
of such acquisition,) then, a strong sentiment in the 
North opposed to the extension of slavery, which 
now lies dormant under the restraint of the Consti- 
tution, would be aroused to prevent that extension, 
and we should immediately find the people divided 
into two great poHtical parties— the slavery and the 
anti-slavery parties. The Abolitionists have a politi- 
cal organization even now, and if such a state of 
things should occur, who can doubt that they would 
gain the ascendant in political power ? Then, would 
not the slave-holder find himself under the necessity 
of defending his constitutional rights, even if their 
defence should demand the last arc^ument of kino-s? 
The Constitution of the United States gives Con- 
gress no power to control the institution of slavery : 
it belongs exclusively to the sovereignty of the 
states. Therefore it is plain, that any political power 
that the Abolitionists might bring to bear upon the 
slave states, in violation of the sovereignty of these 
states, would lead to a dissolution of the Union ; and, 
as the Abolitionists, as a political party, could 
enforce no exactions upon the slave states, without 
creating a civil war, their zeal for the benefit of the 
slave or the honour of the country, tends in a wrong 
direction ; for the resistance to the admission of new 
slave states into the Union, wdiich, under the circum- 

L 



162 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

stances just mentioned, the North would feel bound 
to make, could have no other possible effect than the 
dissolution of the Union, which might probably be 
effected by common consent at first. 

Such must be the consequences to this Union, 
however much the patriot may regret the necessity, 
if the agitations which have already nearly convulsed 
the nation to dissolution, are aggravated by the early 
acquisition of Lower California, with other portions 
of Mexico, or the Island of Cuba. Indeed, it may 
fairly be asserted, that the question of slavery has 
already weakened the bonds of union, and without 
any further acquisition of territory, may lead to a 
civil war ; especially as perfect, full, and immediate 
emancipation, together with the political enfran- 
chisement of the slave, is demanded by the most 
inflammatory, fanatical, and anti-constitutional por- 
tion of the Abolition party. It must be acknow- 
ledged, however reluctantly we admit the fact, that 
the parties which have controlled our destinies, 
with a single eye to selfish purposes, to the exclusion 
of the present and future interests of the country, 
have driven this question into a position by which 
the union of the states is most seriously endangered ; 
for we cannot suppose, on the one hand, that the 
Abolitionists will cease agitating it, or, on the other, 
that the slave states avIII Ijow, in their sovereignty, 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 163 

to the will of the Abolitionist. The only possible 
mode of settling this question, if slavery is to re- 
main permanent, seems to be the separation of the 
free states from the slave states. 

Yet, even should this agitation lead to a separa- 
tion of the Union, with all the disgrace attached to 
so ignoble a deed — whether the result be accom- 
plished by common consent or civil war — still the 
progress of time will develop the destiny of the 
North and the South in relation to government, 
population, and all other things appertaining to a 
nation. Now, in case this separation is brought 
about, as slavery connects itself with the South as 
a theoretical necessity, let us examine what time 
wdll do for the South under the more favourable 
alternative — that of a peaceable separation. As I 
have proposed a hundred years for the removal of 
the African, we will limit this examination of future 
probabilities to a like period of time. Allowing 
thirty-three years for the slave population to double 
itself, 3,500,000 slaves would increase in numbers, 
in one hundred years, to more than 28,000,000. For 
the better security of the master it would be requi- 
site that this increased population should be as 
widely dispersed as possible. Acquisitions of terri- 
tory would become essentially necessary for this 
purpose. As it would be impossible to acquire this 



164 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

territory from the North, it would be sought after 
in the South. Mexico would be subdued for the 
extension of slavery, if practicable. If not of easy 
conquest as a whole, she would be attacked at 
points where she is powerless for defence, as is now 
the case in Lower California. AVhy are our ships 
of war not now on the coast of Lower California, 
protecting Sonora against the traitors who have 
disturbed the peace of a friendly nation ? The next 
step would probably be, the acquisition of the 
Island of Cuba. The moment this step is taken, 
the pains and penalties of the South, in consequence 
of her unyielding grasp of slavery, will begin to be 
seriously felt; for it will be found that a hatred of 
the institutions of slavery will not cease to exist in 
the North. Although no violent manifestations of 
this hatred may be allowed, yet every legal means 
will be resorted to in order to keep the slave govern- 
ment in constant fear of consequences. The legal 
means which the North will adopt to render slavery 
as irksome as possible to the South will be, the 
appropriation of all the unsold portion of the Public 
Domain, in aiding the free coloured man to go to 
Africa, as well as enabling every fugitive slave to 
join him in building up civilization on that conti- 
nent; for, it must be remembered, that, when 
African progress is once put fully under way by 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 165 

penetrating the interior with railroads, and establish- 
ing free states, and when commerce becomes active 
between Africa and the Northern United States, 
every free coloured man will carry 7iis memory with 
him to the land of his forefathers, and that father- 
land will be found to afford the best asylum and 
the most enlarged freedom for the fugitive slave. 
Labourers will be in demand there, and capital as 
well as feeling will be engaged in transporting 
all fugitives there, and encouraging the slave to 
abscond, to swell their numbers. 

There is no escape from the conclusions I have 
now arrived at. It must be recollected that the 
inconsiderate and pertinacious agitators of the slave 
question, as it affects these United States and espe- 
cially the slave-holder and slave states, have already 
" carried the war into Africa," and there will be no 
peace upon any other principle than such as I pro- 
pose : — Justice to Africa by a common effort of 
justice to ourselves ! 

The moment an effort is made by the Southern 
states to annex the Island of Cuba, the North will 
protest. It will be claimed that the Island of Cuba 
is the principal of a group lying upon the Gulf of 
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, belonging to the 
entire continent of America, and having relations 
in point of interest common to both North and 



166 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

South America ; that the colonial vassalage in which 
these islands have long been held by European 
powers, has exerted an oppressive bearing upon the 
prosperity, not of the islands only, but the continent 
also ; for, as these powers regulate the commerce 
of the islands, the exaction of duties and tonnage by 
them has continually operated to the prejudice of 
the nations on the continent to which these appen- 
dages properly belong by nature ; that the time has 
arrived when neither the Northern United States, 
Mexico, South America, nor Central America, can 
ever allow the Southern states to annex the Island 
of Cuba. It 'will be given as a reason for this 
decision, that the mercantile exactions of the 
Southern states, after annexation, would be equally 
prejudicial to the interests of all the nations of the 
American continent. It would be claimed, there- 
fore, on the principle of self-defence and the balance 
of power, that these islands must be endowed with 
an independent nationality, under the guarantee of 
all the continental nations; and the independence 
of the Island of Cuba from all immediate control 
by any continental power would be not only of the 
highest importance, but actually essential to the 
maintenance of a national government in the West 
Indies. Besides, it will be urged, that, in conse- 
quence of the growing importance of the civilized 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 167 

government in Africa, the independence of these 
islands has become necessary, to prevent African 
influence from controlling what really belongs to 
America. It cannot be doubted for one moment 
that, if Africa should receive no other aid in the 
progress of civilization than that which the Coloniza- 
tion Society can give her, and if the negro should 
still be held in bondage on these islands, three 
generations will not pass away before the roar of 
African cannon will resound upon the shores of the 
Island of Cuba, demanding the restitution of the 
slave ! 

When this day shall come, and come it will if the 
negro continues in bondage, then the great day of 
trial for the South will also be at hand. With 
28,000,000 of a servile race in her fields, in her 
forests, in her dwellings, listening to the battle 
shouts of their free brethren re-echoing along her 
shores, where will she be ? Whither will she turn 
for aid ? The pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of 
fire by night, will bewilder her march and her 
councils ; the waters, long piled up on either hand 
till an oppressed race has fulfilled its destiny in the 
land of its servitude, will collapse ! Hope pales, 
and humanity shudders at the scene. Let us draw 
the curtain. 



1G8 OUR WHOLE DUTY 



CHAPTER VII. 

A PLAIN TALK WITH THE FREE MAN OF COLOUR IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

Motives for the African Exodus — The Slave-master generally kind, yet 
Humanity demands Emancipation — The Establishment of African 
Nationality essential both to Freeman and Slave — Wrong Views and 
Practice of the Abolitionists — Political and Social Equality impossible 
for the Free Coloured Man here — Consequence of attempting it — America 
has nothing to offer him which he should accept in exchange for African 
Independence — Political objects of Abolitionists — Unconditional Eman- 
cipation would cause Civil War — Condition of the African in Civil War 

— Possibility of a peaceful Separation of the Union — Condition of the 
African Race in that case — Two distinct Races cannot dwell together on 
a footing of Equality — True Political Position of the African in 
America — He is still a Captive — Rights of Captives — Peculiarities of 
African Captivity, and their Political Consequences — Reasons why the 
Coloured Man should favour Colonization and African Nationality, even 
if Public Aid be denied him — Climate of Africa compared with our own 
Country — Danger of Delay — British Settlements — Effects of African 
Progress on Slavery — Consequences of attempting to attain Political 
Power here — Folly of depending upon National Philanthropy — Is there 
Labour enough for all ? — Proposed Exploration of Africa by Free Blacks 

— Its vast possible Consequences — Concluding Appeals. 

In considering the measures proposed for the 
exodus of the African — measures which aim at the 
removal of the whole race, both freeman and slave, 
in the space of one hundred years — the full under- 
standing of the scheme and his own connection 
with it, will be of the utmost interest to the free 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 169 

coloured man ; and his hearty co-operation will be 
of the highest importance to himself and to Africa. 
In fact, that co-operation will be essential to the 
effective execution of the scheme at the commence- 
ment, and, therefore, to the ultimate success of the 
entire plan. 

With you, my coloured friends, especially those 
of you who are freemen, I desire to have a talk 
upon this all-important subject of your exodus 
to your fatherland, in order that you may fully 
understand the reasons which render your departure 
not only desirable to the nation, but of the highest 
importance to yourselves, and essential to the future 
elevation of your race. 

The Abolitionist has secured your ear by his 
efforts in claiming for you rights that he can never 
establish, and has thus induced you to consider him 
as your best friend. In this regard for him, you do 
your own race a direct injury, which falls with 
especial weight upon your enslaved brother of the 
South. You cause the point of the nail that closes 
his shackles to be turned in and clinched into his 
very flesh. The claims of the Abolitionist impel 
the master of the slave to struggle perpetually to 
secure a broader field and longer duration for the 
enchainment of your race, than he would do, if the 
continual agitation of the subject did not keep him 



170 OURTTHOLEDUTT 

in a state of perpetual alarm, lest his legal and con- 
stitutional rights as a citizen may be wrested from 
him, by the force of a popular clamour, based upon 
the plea of humanity, and abstract but impracticable 
justice. 

That most admirable book. Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
written in open hostility to the Southern institutions, 
is truthful in representing that sympathy, kindness, 
and generosity really predominate in the general 
character of the slave-master; so that feeling and 
good treatment of the slave constitute the rule, 
while the horrible abuses and cruelties not less 
vividly portrayed in the work, are but the excep- 
tions. But these exceptions are of such a character 
as should induce a generous and humane people to 
seek, by proper means, the emancipation of your 
enslaved brethren. And, even of your own condi- 
tion, it may be remarked with propriety, that the 
wealth, the education, and the comforts of living 
which some of you attain to in the North, are 
exceptions to the general rule of oppression, dis- 
ability, and suffering, which even as freemen you 
endure. Your situation here, as freemen or slaves, 
requires that you should look to your own land for 
nationality and an open road to honourable advance- 
ment. Here it never has been, never will be, never 
can be offered to you. 

Mrs. Bird, a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin, is 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 171 

represented as receiving a temporary visit at home 
from her husband, during the session of the Ohio 
Legislature, he being a senator of that state. She 
learns that he had voted for a law for the arrest of 
fugitive slaves in the state of Ohio, and their return 
to their owners. Taking the humane side of the 
question, and stating to her husband that he him- 
self would not obey the law, she grows so earnest 
and eloquent in her appeals, that her husband 
exclaims, 

"Mary! Mary, my dear! Let me reason with 

you." 

" I hate reasoning, John," replies the wife, " espe- 
cially reasoning on such subjects. There's a way 
you political folks have of coming round and round 
a plain, right thing, and you don't believe in it 
yourselves, when it comes to practice. I know you 
well enough, John ; you don't believe it 's right any 
more than I do ; and you wouldn't do it any sooner 
than I." 

In this abolition argument, humanity is made to 
look no further than to the isolated cases of suffer- 
ing, and a desire for liberty, upon the part of your 
race. The whole practical result of the plot of the 
Cabin is this : — George Harris, Eliza his wife, with 
Jim and his mother, all fugitive slaves, are carried 
forward by the aid of Abolitionists, to Upper San- 



172 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

dusky, and there placed on board a steamboat, on 
their way to Canada and freedom. Now, in the 
whole course of this abduction, the laws of the 
land are evaded by a cunning dictated by humanity, — 
by the appeals of individual suffering, painted in 
the strongest colours. When George Harris declares 
he would purchase his liberty, if necessary, at the 
expense of the lives of his pursuers, or die in the 
attempt, the humanity of the Abolitionists sympa- 
thizes with him most fully ; but when the necessity 
actually occurs, and Loker is shot, their cunning 
leaves George Harris and Jim to fight their own 
battles, and take all the responsibility. Now 
observe, also, that when the fight is over, the 
same humanity displays itself towards the wounded 
slave-catcher, in spite of the despicable character of 
the ruffian. Surely you must yourselves perceive 
that a humanity, however intense in your favour, 
that recommends violent resistance on the part of 
your brethren, the slaves, would soon be transferred 
to the wounded of the white race, if this resistance 
should extend itself beyond an isolated case. ' 

In the claims of the Abolitionist, set forth in the 
elaboration of the story of these fugitives, reason is 
discarded, and humanit}^ alone is permitted to break 
down ever}^ other consideration. It even causes a 
grave senator, who, under the influence of reason and 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 173 

patriotism, has just voted for a fugitive slave law as 
the best means of securing the peace and happiness 
of the whole nation, to bow in humiliation, in obe- 
dience to the claims of humanity, and to violate 
that law for the happiness of an individual! Can 
you not perceive that a plan which proposes to 
elevate your social and political condition as a 
people, by means that can be applied to individual 
cases only, must be of little or no service to you as 
a distinct race, with whom not even the semblance 
of social equality will ever be permitted here ? 

You can never raise yourselves into political 
power, or social standing in this country, except by 
force; and if force should give you that power 
(which I presume it never will), you would place us 
under a control as servile and exacting as loe now 
exercise over you. 

Do not answer me as Hazael did the Hebrew 
Prophet of old, — ^""Is thy servant a dog that he 
should do this great thing?" Recollect that you 
have already learned to flourish the whip over your 
own blood and kin, in the southern states, where 
some of you have grown rich, and are even now 
slave owners. 

Such are the admonitions of nature, and the 
experience of the nations that have felt the evils 
which arise, wherever distinct races of men have 



174 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

been commingled with each other under one nation- 
ality. Reason, too, proclaims that no human 
power, short of the active benevolence of the entire 
people, can place you in a condition of social 
equality ; and that even this benevolence can only 
accomplish the result by giving you a distinct 
nationality, which is impossible on the American 
continent. George Hams tells you this, after the 
experience that taught him how limited was the 
power of his friends, the Abolitionists. He tells 
them that, after having considered the subject well, 
he does not desire to accept even all that they could 
secure for him in America. He tells them that the 
scheme of colonization in Liberia promises the only 
hope of nationality and emancipation for his enslaved 
and suffering race. Does it not strike you that 
these abolitionist appeals for your political elevation, 
by which your sympathies are enlisted, your hopes 
raised, and your desires inflamed'into the belief that 
you can do much for the cause of freedom by pro- 
claiming your owm rights, — does it not strike you, I 
say, that these appeals look more to the political 
agitation that may elevate white men to power in 
the government, than towards anything that they 
can practically accomplish for your benefit ? Surely, 
if you understood the relations yo\i actually hold 
towards this country, and reiiienibered the fact, that 



TO THE BLACK MAX. 175 

five out of six of your entire race in America 
are enslaved, whatever abstract claim to equality 
may be made for you, you would see, at once, that 
no political party holding the reins of power, which 
should attempt your unconditional emancipation and 
political elevation, could produce any other efiect 
than the dismemberment of the Union, by the 
worst of all calamities, a civil war ! 

In such a war, you yourselves, with no power to 
control events, would remain the passive objects of 
contention. You would be made the sufferers. In 
such a convulsive scene of disaster and dismay as 
the political ascendency of the Abolitionist policy 
would render inevitable, the only hope for your race 
would be in the most perfect and complete inaction ; 
for, in a struggle so fearful, which would shatter in 
fragments the Constitution of the most free Govern- 
ment upon earth, if you should raise a hand in 
defence of what you are taught to consider your 
natural and "inalienable rights;" if you should 
attempt to carry out the doctrine you are now daily 
taught from the pulpit and the rostrum; that, an 
opportunity for freedom once presented, the means 
of resistance, however violent, are admissible ; — 
extermination would be your inevitable fate. 

The very humanity widely diffused throughout 
the United States, which now looks upon you as a 



176 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

sufferer labouring under many privations, and truly 
commiserates your condition, without any obvious 
and effective means of relieving you, — would seek, in 
such an event, for objects of compassion among. 
and expand itself in sympathy with, our own race, 
of whose sufferings you would be the authors. Such 
would inevitably be the effect of any violent action 
on your part ; and this reaction would carry with 
it 3^our entire destruction. Can you doubt this ? If 
you do, I tell you that a nation which systematically, 
and at any cost, even that of bloodshed, has re- 
moved, in gradual progression, one race of men out 
of the way of its advancement, and is, even now. 
penning the remnant of that race within the most 
limited and constantly narrowing circle; if their 
passions should ever become excited by any enormi- 
ties committed by you, would bring to bear upon 
you the weight of their power, to your prompt and 
utter annihilation ! 

Can you not draw a line of distinction between 
the results of the philanthropy displayed by the 
Abolitionists in isolated cases of fugitives — which 
is continually held in your view as proof of their 
friendship and goodwill towards you — and those 
which would certainly follow a national demonstra- 
tion, such as they promise you ? Do you not see, 
that, thus far, by an unprofitable agitation, they 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 177 

have produced nothing more than a proper sympathy 
for your condition, which they could have brought 
about by other and more moderate means, if as 
zealously pursued? Do you not perceive that, by 
awakening this feeling in a manner unnecessarily 
violent and irrational, they have tightened the 
bonds and abridged the privileges of your enslaved 
brethren ? Can you even suppose for a moment, 
that, if those friends of yours upon whom you so 
much rely, should ever succeed to the administration 
of the Government, they would attempt to effect 
the realization of your hopes ? They could not do 
it. The gulf that would stand wide open in their 
view, into which that attempt would plunge both 
them and you, would deter them ! The spectres of 
a civil war and crushed Constitution, would rise to 
frighten them from any measure of emancipation 
for the slave, or social or political elevation for 
yourselves. That national Constitution which, as 
they pretend, does not stand in the way of extend- 
ing to your race and all mankind rights equal with 
our own, would be found to present a barrier over 
which they could not leap. 

It may happen, indeed, though very improbable, 

that a peaceful division of the Union may take 

place, if an increase of slave states by acquisition of 

slave territory, at the cost of the Northern states, 

M 



178 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

should be insisted upon by the South; as I have 
shown elsewhere. But, in what respect would you 
be benefited by such a change? At the South, 
your brethren would still remain slaves, more 
severely restrained in proportion to the efforts of 
the Abolitionists to favour their escape. At the 
North, you would remain as you are ; for the North 
would oppose your political and social elevation as 
strongly as the South resists the emancipation of 
your brethren ! Two distinct races never did, and 
never will, exist on an equality under one single 
government. 

However much the harmony of the Government 
of the United States may be disturbed by the agita- 
tion of slavery, that institution cannot be reached, 
or the emancipation of the slave effected, by the 
national Government, nor even by the action of any 
number of sovereign states, aided by that of the 
Abolitionists of all the states combined, in defiance 
of the laws of one particular Commonwealth. 

In calling your attention, then, to the proj^osed 
plan for the emancipation and elevation of your 
race, which has been the chief subject of the fore- 
going pages of this book — a plan which, nnlike 
that of the Abolitionists, is both general and prac- 
ticable — allow me to enter with you into an inquiry 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 179 

as to what your natural and political rights in this 
country really are. 

The first question that naturally presents itself in 
a national point of view, with relation to your claim of 
citizensliip in this country, is this : — Are you still a 
captive here or are you not? That your ancestors 
came here as captives, none will deny ; and if it can- 
not be shown that this captivity has ever been an- 
nulled — if no national proclamation or declaration 
of rights has ever been specifically extended to your 
race — then j^ou are, in the eye of the law, as much 
a captive noio, as you were on the first day of your 
captivity ; and your title to equal rights with those 
who hold you in captivity is no stronger now, than it 
was a hundred years ago ; so that, in every correct- 
view of your peculiar captivity, you are still as much 
an African in nationality, as you were in the first days 
of the captivity of your race ! No such bill of 
rights has ever been uttered ; and therefore the 
question must be decided in the affirmative. 

But, although it may be said that you have no 
national or lawful claim to citizenship here, yet you 
have a strong claim upon the humanity and justice 
of the nation, from the peculiar nature and history 
of your captivity. The fact that the depravity and 
defenceless condition of the nations from whom you 
were originally dragged by force, have rendered them 



180 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

powerless to demand your restitution, viewed in 
connection with the oppressions to which you have 
been subjected in America, gives you this indisputable 
claim. Nor have these unhappy circumstances 
weakened in any degree your national rights ; so 
that, as long as you are held in confinement, or are 
only allowed liberty upon parole, the state which, 
having put you under this restraint, or upon this 
parole, still refuses to assist any of you who desire 
to return to your proper nationality in accomplishing 
this purpose, gives you just cause of complaint. A 
nation that measures out justice to a captive only 
when compelled to do so, may still make necessity ■ 
an excuse for not doing rigid, but can neither lay 
claim to voluntary justice, nor to self-respect. 

Humanity prompts kind treatment to the captive ; 
but his release may be prevented by a higher law — 
that of self -preservation. In cases where captives . 
are the subjects of a power capable of demanding 
their release, on the ground that they owe allegiance 
to the power making the demand, the release may 
be made to depend conditionally upon the payment ' 
of special damages received, expenses incurred, or 
any other considerations ; but a positive refusal to 
release the captive on proper terms, cannot be 
defended on any other ground than self-preserva- ^ 
tion : but when detained under this plea, neither 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 181 

the nation making the demand, nor the captive him- 
self, has any just cause of complaint, promt^ec? Tie is 
treated vnth humanity. 

There may be cases of captivity in which human- 
ity itself will bar the door, while putting on sack- 
cloth and ashes, and mourning over the necessity 
that self-preservation imposes on the nation, for the 
security of its institutions. You will at once per- 
ceive how readily the peace and happiness of a 
nation might be destroyed by the admission of a 
race of captives to citizenship, rather than restoring 
them to their proper allegiance; especially if the 
race should differ very widely from the captors. 
Dangers may sometimes be found to present them- 
selves from men of the same race being admitted into 
a nation upon terms of perfect equality, on the 
simple plea of humanity, without any regard to 
policy. Indeed, upon this principle, a Government 
may so put aside all prudent guards, that the deepest 
designs of treason may be perfected under the 
appearance of perfect acquiescence in the law, until, 
by a joint or combined effort, the Government may 
be destroyed for want of vigilance at a moment 
when it believes itself perfectly secure. 

But your captivity is of a character peculiar to 
itself Your country is too deeply degraded to 
demand your restitution to your allegiance ; the lim- 



182 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

ited liberty you possess renders you powerless in your 
own defence, or the defence of your slave brethren, 
and yields you no opportunity to elevate your own 
nation, so long as you look for political elevation in 
the nation that oppresses you. To aspire to political 
position in a country in which the condition of 
negro slavery is rendered irremediable by the gene- 
ral Government, under one of the fundamental 
provisions of the Constitution itself, is sheer folly : 
and this fact alone sJiould he a sufficient reason to 
induce you to seek a nationality in your own land. 
In judging of the propriety of so doing, there are 
several considerations by which you ought to be 
governed. The nature and cause of your oppression 
should be your first inquiry. If you cannot find 
any other plea for your captivity than the avarice 
of a nation, grasping at wealth and power through 
your labours and energies, your judgment ought, at 
once, to dictate a yielding to necessity, under a full 
conviction that, so long as you allow yourselves, or 
can be made, to minister to this avarice, your oppres- 
sion and that of your enslaved brethren will con- 
tinue. You must recollect that you were stolen 
from your country; and, for the reason that that 
country could not punish the thief, you were openly 
acknowledged to be stolen property, in the shape 
and form of human beincjs ! Yes ! men who were 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 183 

the subjects of nations claiming for their rule of 
moral conduct the teachings of Christianity. Mer- 
chants governed by the laws of Christian nations, 
have traded in your jflesh from first to last, with no 
other consideration for you than the pieces of silver 
you would sell for ! And your value was found in 
the capacity you have for labour! 

You are valued as much for the power you have 
to labour now, as you w^ere ilien ; so that, to secure 
the full benefit of your labours, you have been, you 
are, and you ever will be, denied all political and 
social elevation or social equality in this country. 
What plea can overthrow this argument in favour 
of compelling your services, while unscrupulous 
worshippers of mammon are, with few exceptions, 
the leading politicians who seek to administer the 
Government for selfish ends? In the pursuit of 
political power by statesmen of this stamp, all good 
example is ridiculed; the future remains a sealed 
book, and the present is regarded only for the spoils 
of office. 

K the cries and anguish of your kindred when 
torn from their homes ; if the horrors of the slave 
ship ; if the crushed and broken heart of the victim 
of rapacity ; if bis shoulders, bruised and lacerated 
under the lash of the task-master; if pity and 
commiseration for your hapless and forlorn oppres- 



184 OURWHOLEDUTY 

sioii — if all tltese things have not sufficed to arrest 
your captivity even to this hour, where is your future 
hope ? If a powerful nation — a nation that ought 
to be as magnanimous as it is great — has failed to 
inquire into the means that should relieve the 
oppressed ; if it has failed to ofler to a degraded 
nation a compensation for the wrongs that have 
been heaped upon her ; even refusing to follow the 
example of the leading European powers, by acknow- 
ledging the American colonies in Africa, founded by 
humanity, supported by private means, and cherished 
and sustained by your patriotic American brethren 
— if you see around you all these things, let me 
conjure you, my coloured friends, to examine well 
your true relations to the sordid spirit of power 
which refuses to render you justice ! Deceive your- 
selves no longer with the hope that the little drib- 
bling rill of Abolition will one day empty the ocean 
of your wrongs ! When you have learned your 
true position in this land, then let Reason point you 
to your duty. If she should teach you that the 
grapes growing upon the vines of " humanity and 
equal rights," which are assiduously cultivated for 
your use by the Abolitionists, do not grow too high 
for you to reach them, and that they will not be 
sour when grasjied, surely your nativity, and the 
graves of your kiudred and friends will plead in 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 185 

natural and strong language that you should stay 
here and eat them. But if Reason should tell you 
that the storms of agitation by which these vines 
are nourished, will probably prevent the fruit from 
ripening, and thus wreck all your hopes at last, you 
will have less sagacity than the fox in the fable, if 
you do not pronounce these grapes sow ! Again ; if 
Reason should point out your duty to Africa, by 
showing that such grapes, even if won, would be 
but a small compensation for the horrors and con- 
sternation of the African slave-hunt ; for the suffo- 
cation and agonizing death of your brethren in the 
slave ships; for the bones of your race left bleaching 
on the bottom of the ocean in every channel, from 
Africa to Christian lands ; for the spirit bruised, the 
heart broken through sufferings such as these, and 
expatriation into unmitigated slavery ; for the sepa- 
ration of man and wife, mother and child — if 
Reason and Religion should unite their voices to 
remind you that, even here, during your sojourn in 
the wilderness of woes and the dungeons of despair, 
you have been entrusted with the keys that shall 
unlock the doors, and open the windows of the 
houses of your fathers, that the winds of Heaven 
may sweep away the foul air of superstition and the 
very memory of oppression ; that you are the 
appointed missionaries to carry there American 



186 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

freedom, and light up the chambers with the burn- 
ing and never-fading lights of Christianity ; that, to 
lit you for this task, you have been permitted to 
endure these accumulated miseries, and that, in 
fulfilling it, you will reap full compensation for 
them all — surel}^ you will no longer " lust after the 
flesh-pots of Egypt," but will steadfastly pursue the 
line of duty dictated by both natural and Divine 
revelation ! You will surely regard as futile, the 
claims of "humanity and equal rights," as made 
applicable to your case by the Abolitionists in this 
country, and will join with me in entreating for 
a wider humanity, acting upon a broad national 
scale, and calculated to promote your exodus; be- 
lieving, with me, that any form of humanity that 
does not embrace your fatherland within its mantle, 
can only excite a useless pity for your oppressed 
condition — barren of all grand and permanent 
result ! 

But now you may begin to fear that the national 
humanity I claim for you will not be granted ; that 
Congress will not aid in the initiatory steps of the 
scheme I propose ; and that the people will never 
think it worth while to move in the matter, because 
they no longer seem to have the same notions about 
j)ublic affairs, their own rights, the future interests, 
moral dignity and the glory of the country, that were 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 187 

entertained before the Revolutionary War, and 
even after that jpei-iod, up to the time of the election 
of Gen. Jackson. Well, I cannot say that your 
fears are without reason, when we see men hurry- 
ing out of one speculation into another ; the delibe- 
rations of Congress seemingly having no other end 
than to multiply private operations in filibuster-born 
state stocks, private gifts of land for railroads, and 
free gifts of farms to everybody in the world that 
chooses to take them ! 

But you will say, " Perhaps our prospects here 
are not so bad as you think. We recollect that, a 
few years ago, the Abolitionists got some men to 
join them whom they called ' Freesoilers ;' and we 
think it was at Buffalo that they got up a thing 
they called a Platform ; and directly we were told 
that we were to have free democracy, freedom of 
speech, and free soil ; and the houseless poor would 
be made rich ; and all this was done, we were told, 
for our benefit more than that of the white man. 
Yet we must confess we are no better off* than we 
were before, notwithstanding Mr. Van Buren took 
the lead in our behalf. And when you tell us that 
the recommendation of Mr. Van Buren to graduate 
the price of the public lands, and sell that which 
had been lying in the market for fifteen years dog 
cheap, was only intended to lay the foundation of a 



188 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

great speculation in the land lying six and seven 
miles, and so on, from the canals, we suppose you 
mean to say that the knowing ones would have 
bought it for twenty-five cents an acre, and sold it 
to the poor settler for five and ten dollars per acre !" 

Yes ; that is what I mean to say. 

" Well then," you will reply, " since we are not 
to have any free gifts of land, we begin to think 
our masters intend to keep the land, and us too, for 
the grandest speculation ever yet based upon our 
rights and the rights of the white poor man !" 

With your doubts and your fears, and your ques- 
tions about political agitations that never have done, 
and never will do, any good, you prevent me from 
stating to you that, if Congress and the people 
should alike refuse to carry out the scheme I pro- 
pose for your exodus, it is nevertheless your duty 
to make all the exertions in your power to go to 
Africa ! 

The colonization of Africa has taken root -in 
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Maryland Colony, 
where political freedom such as you desire here in 
vain, is really to be found ; a freedom that, if you 
will, you can direct for the good of your whole 
people ; so that your destiny, and that of your 
country, docs not positively depend upon the scheme 
I have proposed for ^^our assistance. I urge this 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 189 

duty upon you, and upon our own Government alike, 
for our elevation in national morality, and for your 
rapid advance in civilization. You may rely upon 
it that Liberty and Christianity will advance in 
Africa, as certainly as out of the acorn grows the 
oak, and the sooner you go to nourish this tree of 
liberty, the better for yourselves and country. Your 
population in the United States and Canada exceeds 
500,000. Let us suppose that a like number should 
transfer themselves and their interests to their 
fatherland. We should then behold the organiza- 
tion of five or six states, all raising the flag of Afri- 
can liberty, upon a hlach ground with loldte strijpes, 
with as many stars as states. We should see an 
active commerce existing between the United States 
and your country. Only think of this for a mo- 
ment! African ships moored at the Philadelphia 
w^harves, owned by black captains and merchants ; 
the crews, black sailors ; loaded with the riches of 
Africa, brought to the coast by railroads from the 
interior and mountain regions — from a rich soil and 
a salubrious climate ! Why ; you would all of you 
be on the wharves, inquiring whether the steamboat 
which left but six weeks before, had arrived in 
Africa with your friends on board before tliey left. 
You would have confirmation of all the good reports 
of African progress in freedom and civilization. Of 



190 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

course you would all desire to go to Africa, and all 
of you who could, would immediately make ready 
and go. Then, if slavery should still exist in the 
Southern states, while your ships and steamboats, 
as well as ours, would be departing from New 
York and Philadelphia, and arriving from Africa 
almost daily, you would find that your Abolition 
friends, (who aid the fugitive to escape from his 
master, " because it is right to do so," and because 
"all men are born free and equal," and reason has 
nothing to do with " the higher laws which give 
liberty to all,") would conduct the fugitives on board 
the African ships. They would all be Colonization- 
ists then. Canadian liberty would be too exacting, 
and of course no longer appreciated by the runaway 
himself. 

But I hear you say, " These things are not so 
now." That is true; but it is your own fault that 
this commerce does not already exist in its incipient 
stages. If you that are intelligent and industrious, 
and saving of 3'our earnings, had encouraged industry 
and economy among your people, and if all of you 
had determined, with a proper patriotism, to carry 
your wealth and your knowledge of American pro- 
gress and American liberty to Africa, instead of 
looking only for the little aid that the Colonization 
Society can afford you, or suffering yourselves to be 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 191 

beguiled by hopes that can never be realized, (or, 
if they could be, would still fall short of that happy 
independence you can secure in Africa,) then you 
would not have to say, " These things are not so 
now." 

But let it be once understood that your faces are 
turned homewards, and you would find the American 
merchant ready immediately to furnish all the 
means necessary for your emigration and commerce ; 
and, in one year, by such a course of conduct, you 
would see preparations being made to secure the 
African trade for the mutual benefit of your country 
and ours. 

But you are told that the climate of Africa is 
sickly, and that men cannot live there. Yet you 
know that men do live there ! This idea is founded 
upon an inordinate zeal for your equality of rights 
here, without hope or reason. Surely there can be 
no difficulty in your understanding the flummery of 
this argument, after having resided in this country 
for two hundred years, well knowing all the suffer- 
ings and privations of your ancestors, and all the 
diflBculties you yourselves are daily obliged to over- 
come or yield to. 

Liberia should present itself to your mind as a 
land of promise, to which you can return in the 
gladness of your hearts ; where you could enjoy un- 



192 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

molested liberty with a hope of a happy and free 
posterity. Should you then be startled by the fact 
that death levies a heavier tax upon all early settlers 
of young colonies, than he imposes on well-regulated 
and long-established communities; should this, I sny, 
be permitted to cool your patriotism and your desire 
for independence ? If so, you will give force to the 
chief excuse made for your oppression ; namely, that 
you are idle, unambitious, and deficient in the intel- 
lectual capacity required to establish self-government 
or a national character ! I believe many of you to 
be idle and prodigal ; but for this, no people have a 
more reasonable excuse. The first lesson tausht 
you in the process of being lifted from heathen degra- 
dation, through a bruised spirit and a broken heart, 
has caused you to lean with entire dependence upon 
your master. This has rendered too many of you 
idle and profligate ; and even in your freest condi- 
tion, the want of proper motives to ambition and 
exertion has subdued or depressed the power of 
your intellect. Yet there are many of you who are 
Avealthy and highly intelligent, dignified in manners, 
moral in sentiment, and capable of appreciating, 
perhaps with a fervour peculiar to yourselves, the 
saving health of Christianity. Under such influ- 
ences, a true patriotism will set you right upon this 
question of the health of Africa. This question 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 19S 

you will answer best by comparing it with the 
health of other places. Nor could you possibly 
have been placed upon any portion of the globe 
where you could so well form a proper estimate of 
the difficulties which new colonies have to overcome 
as in this country. Our early history teaches you 
the difficulties which Virginia, Massachusetts, and 
all the colonies had to contend with in the beginning. 
In all of them, disease and death broke down the 
pat-riot who sought freedom from an oppression far 
more supportable than yours ; and, by observation, 
you fully understand our progress. The colonies of 
Virginia and Massachusetts suffered in the ravages 
of disease, and the resistance to settlement by the 
natives, much more than has Liberia ; nor was the 
early advance of any of the colonies of America at 
all comparable with the progress of Liberia, except 
in the instance of Pennsylvania alone ; this colony 
being commenced sixty years after that of Virginia. 
Thus it will be seen that it required sixty years to 
colonize the coast between Virginia and New York. 
Even in Pennsylvania, the most favoured of all the 
colonies, Indian murders upon the frontiers were 
perpetrated within a hundred miles of Philadelphia, 
sixty years after the first settlement by "WiUiam 
Penn. In 1755, full seventy-seven years after the 
landing of Penn, and while the whole country west 

N 



194 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

of the Susquehanna river was yet a wilderness, 
Gen. Braddock was defeated by the Indians ! Be- 
hold the activity, life, wealth, and prosperity of this 
colony now ! 

The progress of Liberia during the first thirty 
yeare of its existence, has been far greater than 
that of this most favoured of American colonies ; 
jior can there be a doubt, that if you will give Libe- 
ria the consideration which she demands for the 
promotion of your own best interests and those of 
your fatherland, that, in seventy years after its first 
settlement, or forty-five years from the present time, 
you will have railroads extending hundreds of miles 
into the interior, and penetrating well-organized 
states, inhabited by an industrious, free, and happy 
people; while, at the corresponding period in the 
history of Pennsylvania, no other than a horse-path 
led from one settlement to another in the interior, 
fifty miles from the capital ! Difficulties attended 
every step of the progress of these colonies, such as 
will not be met with in Africa ; and in addition to 
all the advantages you will find to aid you in 3^our 
rapid advancement there, you will have far greater 
encouragement from this country than England ever 
afforded to our ancestors. But, if the scheme I 
have proposed for the work of colonization should 
be adopted, this plan would not only display, in the 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 195 

loftiest manner, the moral grandeur and dignity of 
the nation, but it would advance you in civilization 
with such a startling rapidity, that the settlement 
of Liberia would commence a new era in the history 
of nations. No nation upon earth, however power- 
ful, would then be permitted to plant a colony upon 
the soil of Africa on the principle of colonial vassal- 
age to herself. Nothing short of a free state would 
be allowed, after you had established even four free 
states upon the American model. 

The British have sent expeditions up the im- 
portant African rivers in search of cotton fields. 
They have found a salubrious climate and fertile 
lands; and it is said that they are making prepara- 
tions to navigate those rivers, and found establish- 
ments ; especially on the Chadda, a tributary of the 
Niger. This fact alone may operate against your 
perfect political freedom in your own fatherland, 
unless you act with promptitude, and are backed by 
the United States in some great national scheme. 
This seems necessary to save you another great 
revolution, like to ours, at some future day. No 
doubt you, too, would even then be enabled to glory 
in your own " Fourth of July," and in your own 
"Twenty-second of February:" yet revolutions 
cost blood ; and if you delay your duties, that blood 
will be chargeable to you. But in the low state of 



196 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

public morals in this boasted country of ours, you 
must arouse yourselves, and, by your own efforts, 
secure your own nationality. To persuade you to 
depend upon the aid I ask for you, would be doing 
you injustice; especially when 500,000 of you are 
in a condition not to be restrained from going to 
Africa as fast as you can make the necessary pre- 
paration. Recollect, for your encourgement, that 
the children of Israel were but 400,000 in numbers, 
when their exodus from Egypt to the promised land 
commenced, and that they yet remained in the 
wilderness for forty years, before even their great 
standard-bearer was permitted to look in upon it 
from Mount Pisgah, and even he had not the privilege 
of entering it ! But in all this time, and in all the 
days of Egyptian bondage, these exiles were perfect- 
ing themselves, through wrongs and sufferings, for 
the performance of the vast national duties to which 
they were appointed. Will you then remain behind 
in your similar duty? Will you draw no lesson 
from your parallel history? Will you shut your 
eyes to its prophetic teaching ? With your views 
turned to Africa, you will feel yourselves ennobled ; 
you will feel that, although you may have no hopes 
of ever even seeing the " land of promise " your- 
selves, you have a nation to contend for; you have 
a Divine mission to fulfil. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 19^ 

The limited freedom Canada can give you, and 
the equal rights you now contend for here, will 
appear small gifts in your sight when patriotism 
shall point to an open field for useful labour in 
Africa. Then will you become more industrious, 
more frugal, more inteUigent and enlightened : you 
will study our own history more closely, and your 
observation of all you can see in our progress will 
be made applicable to the progress of your father- 
land. When your little boy returns from school, 
you will lay your hand upon his head ; you will see 
■ in him a future member of Congress, a judge of a 
court, a Governor of a state in Africa ! Such hopes, 
not merely ideal, will make you better men here ; 
and the reaction of that improvement will make 
you more respected, even before you leave us. You 
will see in the future a great blessing in store for 
your children. You will see that, for the benefit of 
Africa, no drunkard, idler, or convict ought to be 
permitted to go there. This last consideration will 
lead to a more proper care of your children, who 
are now neglected by too many of you, because you 
see that a high elevation of character often renders 
them unhappy here, and unfits them for their hum- 
ble duties. But when you discover that talents 
cannot be too highly cultivated for Africa, then 



198 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

indeed will you have motives to actuate your con- 
duct, to which you have as yet been strangers. 

I have stated to you that, when you shall deter- 
mine upon Africa for your home, no longer gazing 
at the basket of sour grapes, the merchants will 
keep pace with all your requirements in your transit. 
And here I want you to bear in mind the certainty 
that African progress will be vastly more rapid than 
was that of the American colonies. In consequence 
of the improved means of transit now at your com- 
mand, the average time of a passage to Liberia, by 
means of a good steamboat, will not be more than" 
twenty days, and our sailing ships will perform it in 
a much shorter time than was required in olden 
days to perform the voyage from England to 
America. 

You cannot all be off at once, though probably 
nearly all of you will soon have a desire to go; and, 
as the Colonization Society, perhaps fortunately, 
cannot furnish aid to all, the means of the wealthy 
and intelligent will naturally enable and induce 
them to lead the way in the elevation of their 
country from heathen degradation to civilization. 
This is as it should be ; and, the way once clearly 
open, the demand for labour in the progress of im- 
provement and agriculture will smooth the path for 
the less fortunate. When you figure to yourselves 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 199 

one state after another, adding their stars to the 
national stripes, united after the example of the 
United States, what power can restrain you, my 
wealthy and intelligent coloured friends, from going 
to Africa, and commencing your noble mission ? 
Oh, how oppressive and galling will the chains you 
now wear appear to the awakened aspirant for per- 
fect liberty ! But how distant will be the accom- 
plishment of so much good, if you who are capable 
of regenerating your fatherland, suffer the glory of 
Africa to rise only through the scanty means of the 
Colonization Society — means which, in too many 
instances, it is obliged to bestow upon the recently 
emancipated slave, whose knowledge of American 
freedom and civilization is, by necessity, so far below 
that which you possess ! 

Can you be idle in so great a salvation for your 
people? Dare you, in conscience, continue to 
struggle for a freedom here, which, if attained by 
all your race, would be so far below the indepen- 
dence which Africa holds out to you, whilst the 
poor and lowly patriot of your tribe is reaping the 
honour and the glory of building up a nationality 
for you, which properly belongs to yourselves ? 

How slow was American colonization for two 
hundred years ; say from 1608 to 1808, when Ameri- 
can Hberty first asserted the right to protect the 



200 OURWIIOLEDUTT 

oppressed of Europe in all cases where American 
citizenship was claimed ! How rapid has been the 
flow of immigration, seeking protection under this 
flag, since that time. The honour, fame, and world- 
acknowledged glory won by the British convict, and 
the poor woman sold to the man who refused to 
abandon the colony of Virginia under the severest 
trials, are only eclipsed by the high esteem and 
veneration in which we hold the stern bearing for 
conscience' sake of the noble patriots who landed 
upon Plymouth rock ! Then, with the assurance 
that, compared with the early colonists of America, 
you will have little to sufler, and that your fame, ho- 
nour, and glory will be no less than theirs — because 
you too seek your own freedom and the salvation of 
your native land — every other consideration ought 
to be made subservient to a stern duty to your 
country. Examine into this duty closely; and if 
you find, as I think you will, that it points to your 
best interests in Africa, and that you can secure 
freedom for your enslaved race, better, and in a 
shorter time, by transferring your means and energy 
to that continent, than you can by any power you 
possess or can acquire here, you will of course pursue 
the line of conduct which it dictates. 

But you have other than mere individual duties 
to perform ; others than those which appertain to the 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 201 

redemption of Africa : the securing of your own 
citizenship there, preparing the way for the poor 
man, and the redemption of your race. You must 
not lose sight of your brother still held in slavery 
here ! You ought fully to understand that the 
sooner you make yourselves strong as a nation, the 
sooner will the desire for extensive or complete 
emancipation here be brought about. Whenever 
Africa becomes strong enough to revive her dormant 
claim to the fealty of her captive compatriots, she 
will demand their freedom ; and the law of nations 
will bear out the demand. 

It will then endanger the slave-holder in the 
United States, as much as in the West India 
Islands, to refuse to emancipate your brethren. I 
have given it as my opinion, that, if slavery remains 
unchecked in the United States, the time will come, 
and that soon, when, measured by the clock that 
records the cycles of nations — say in one hundred 
years — when more than 20,000,000 of your race 
will be found, chiefly in the Southern states and 
in Mexico. I also suppose that, at the end of this 
short period, the employment of the only means in 
your power, (that is, the power you 500,000 freemen 
in the United States possess to control the destinies 
of your fatherland,) will cause the roar of African 
cannon to resound upon the shores of the Island 



202 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

of Cuba, demanding the restitution of the slave to 
his original fealty ; and that, then, the great day of 
trial for the South will have arrived. But, before 
we get through with this talk, (and I am right glad 
to have a little talk with you,) I will show you that, 
if you are slothful, unpatriotic, and apathetic to the 
interests of your country, your fatherland will pre- 
sent another picture. Before I ask you, however, 
to look upon the dark side of this picture, I must 
still suppose that you are particularly interested by 
the bright side of the prospect exhibited by African 
freedom, and the elevation of your race ; for I can- 
not flatter myself that all of you who are wealthy 
and intelligent, and have, or soon might have, the 
confidence of your people, are here and now engaged 
in encouraging them to foster an African nation ality^ 
by inducing them to give up all idea of entering 
into the affairs of our Government, upon equal terms 
with us. I must endeavour still more closely to 
show how utterly impossible it would be for you, or 
for those you are endeavouring to enlighten, to 
secure this equality in anything beyond the mere 
power of voting. I need only point to the vast 
number of foreigners amongst us, who are courted 
for their votes. Yet, whenever one of these foreigners 
has the audacity to ask for office, how his professed 
friends vote directly against him ! When I see that 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 203 

the very considerable amount of wealth and intelli- 
gence which you possess is held back from giving 
Africa that aid of which she stands in so much need, 
while you publicly contend for equal rights here, 
upon the plea of nativiti/, and are using every effort 
to have your allegiance transferred from your own 
country to this, I cannot readily perceive by what 
infatuation you are guided. If you had observed, 
as you might and should have done, the dominant 
character of the Anglo-Saxon, you would have seen 
how impossible it is that any effort you can make to 
secure for yourselves an equality of political rights, 
should prove of any avail. 

History teaches that, however great the power of 
a nation may be, it may decline, grow powerless in 
its own defence, and pass away — that a hardy and 
oppressed people may become the rulers of their 
enervated masters. Your race in this country is four 
millions strong; and, in a little while, you will 
number many millions more. While your exertions 
as labourers enervate your masters, and render them 
perfectly dependent upon you, they are divided 
upon all public matters, even to the preservation of 
the Union ! You argue hence that, as you will be all 
the while growing stronger, one common object may 
yet unite you in sentiment; so that emancipation 
and enfranchisement may one day secure office to 



204 OUR WHOLE duty 

you, as soon as you can gain majorities in townships 
or counties. I tell you, that if you reason in this 
way, you stand on the brink of a precipice ! If you 
had the power, in a single Congressional district, to 
elect a man of your colour to Congress, and were to ' 
enforce your power, it would have the effect of dis- 
solving the Union ; therefore, the very idea that you 
could, by a vote, bring mischief to bear upon us, 
must forever operate as a bar to your enfranchise- 
ment. It is asking too much of a people to put their 
Government in jeopardy. If such are your motives 
for contending for the high privilege of voting, I 
must tell you, in plain dealing, that your hopes will 
never be realized. Do you not at this moment really 
believe that, if you had a vote, and were to present 
one of your own colour for office, in preference to a 
white Abolitionist, your best friends would turn 
against you, and that, rather than you should be 
elected, they would vote for a slave-holder ? I do ! 
I will tell you why I do ! I have seen men who 
court the foreign vote, yet who, when a foreigner 
is presented for office, vote rather for a political 
native American than permit the election of their 
Jdnd, coTifidiyig friends ! You may rest assured that 
if, by any combination of the foreign vote in this 
country, twent}^ purely democratic candidates for 
Congress should be defeated in any one year, even 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 205 

if it were possible that this event should cause no 
wide-spread sensation throughout the country, it 
would at least add twenty to the American party. 
But it would cause such a sensation ! It would have 
the effect at once of changing the naturalization 
laws ! 

Democracy wants voters ; it does not want men 
that want office, nor inquirers into its policy, beyond 
what seemingly relates to broad principles and the 
general good of the country. A closer scrutiny into 
the imhlic spoils is often rewarded by an ejectment 
from the party. Free democracy also wants voters, 
upon the same principle no doubt; and to secure 
your vote, it has raved and still raves about free 
soil. But you see that the slave democracy has 
fairly taken the start of the free democracy, and is 
about giving this free soil to its own voters ; so that, 
really, if you had a vote, you would have to give it 
for nothing. For this slave democracy has all the 
public lands, the revenues of the country, and the 
direction of nearly all the state improvements in 
railroads and canals under its own control ; and this 
whole power is brought to bear in the way best cal- 
culated to secure office and pnva^e speculation. This 
slave democracy will iannex a state, and enact the 
assumption, by the nation, of a state debt, to enrich 
the politician. It will make a war that shall cost 



206 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

millions of dollars, for no better apparent purpose. 
Ten or twenty millions of dollars in payment of 
treaty stipulations are nothing, provided there are 
private claims enough to warrant the transaction 
and absorb the money. All these things modern 
democracy does, without consulting the people at 
all ; the discussion by the people of the subjects that 
engross its attention, or their advice upon such ques- 
tions, is not asked for or desired — the thing is done, 
and there is an end of all argument about it. 

Modern democracy is so jealous of its controlling 
power, that, in all measures of national import which 
do not affect the pocket of the politician personally, 
— such as a bank or a tariff — if these measures 
should happen to favour a conservative policy in the 
most remote degree, or if the Whig party should 
claim the credit of originating them, the axe is laid 
to their root at once, however necessary to the 
public welfare they may be, although the suspension 
of specie payments, and the breaking down of the 
manufacturing interests of the country should stare 
us in the face. 

Doubtless you know more of the liberality of your 
Abolition friends than I do, (yet I do know some 
that will put their hands into their pockets to free 
an individual or a fomilj'- of slaves,) and you can 
judge best whether, if they had the power to serve 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 207 

you as a race, they would raise you upon a political 
equality with themselves or not. 

" Why do you talk to us about the evil practices 
of your public men, and the want of public morals ?" 
asks some wealthy man, of colour. " Surely we do 
not want to interfere any further than this : — as 
tax-payers and born free, we conceive that we have 
a right to a vote. Taxation and representation 
should go together, and we only ask a vote ; but we 
know our places, and we would not interfere with 
politics, except to voteT 

Thus you would carry the liod upon election days, 
as your poorer brethren now do in building our 
houses. The mere privilege of voting is not worth 
contending for, without the power of voting for 
whom you please ; and it must be obvious to you 
that, being men, and disposed even now to grasp at 
the power by which the destiny of the country is 
controlled for good or evil, the very moment you 
could control it for your own benefit, you would do 
so, to the exclusion of all others ! And I sincerely 
believe that any attempt to obtain a controlling 
power by means of any combined effort of yours, 
even in a township or city ward, would bring down 
the most serious harm upon yourselves. To con- 
vince you of this, and in order to prove to you 
how little your claims will be regarded, I have 



208 OUR TTIIOLE DUTY 

endeavoured to show you how concentratedly selfish 
the politician of the present day is ; and that he 
looks only to the promotion of his own ends. In 
my plan for the elevation of your race, by facilita- 
ting your return to your own country, I ask from 
him the means by which he hopes to purchase 
voters at the public expense. You cannot be sur- 
prised, then, to hear me acknowledge my belief that 
the motives by which the modern politician is 
actuated will lead him to refuse to grant, at the 
present time, the request I make in your behalf. I 
think, also, that some time will be required for the 
people, in their present state of apathy with regard 
to the public lands, to find out how much this trust 
is abused by Congress. It will be some time, before 
they can be induced to inquire into, and exert their 
power in removing the Public Domain from the 
custody of politicians, and giving a proper direction 
to its management.* I am anxious, too, that you 



* The scheme of the Pacific Railroad is likely to favour the plans 
in relation to the Public Domain which are adverted to in this 
work, because the people will find that the public lands ofiPer the 
only legitimate means for the construction of this roadj and, in 
order to insure the completion of this great national work, and due 
economy in the vast expenditures demanded by it in a wilderness 
far removed from regular settlements, it will be necessary that a 
proper supervision should be exercised in relation to it. Congress 
cannot secure economy, even in the ordinary aflFairs of the Govern- 
ment ; and the proposed Board of the Public Domain will doubtless 
be rejrarded as a far safer agent for the work. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 209 

should take the securing of jour freedom and citizen- 
ship into your own hands, and in the right way. 
This is the only excuse I have for speaking to you 
of our headlong course, so that you should not be 
too much disappointed if you should receive no such 
aid as I have demanded for you. Besides; I want 
to convince you that, if the people would rather see 
the riches of the country squandered in corrupt or 
injurious speculation, than that they should aid you, 
as captives, in restoring you to your natural alle- 
giance, small indeed must be the chance of your 
securing rights and privileges here, in the midst of 
those who deny you even that justice by which they 
would be able really to enrich and elevate them- 
selves, if selfishness had not so blinded them to their 
own interests that they cannot perceive the most 
obvious truths! 

Have you not been repeatedly told by the Pha- 
rojolis who are not willing to let you go to your 
fatherland, that this country is large enough to hold 
all of you and us\ that there are millions of acres 
of land to clear up, and houses to build, and all 
you can desire for happiness here ; that it is morally 
right that you should have all the privileges you 
contend for ; that Africa is no longer your land ? 
And have you not found, when thus reconciled to 
your hopeless situation, that the hafdest work in 
o s 



210 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

clearing the farm and building the house was allotted 
to your share ? Has it never occurred to you that 
the vast amount of labour you perform here, if pro- 
perly directed and aided by the wealth you possess, 
would make Africa flourish as a civilized nation ? 
Nor is this all. Has it never occurred to you that 
you are only tolerated or appreciated here for the 
labour you can perform? Do you not hear daily, 
that Europe, at a public charge, empties her jails 
and poor houses of her paupers and convicts, and 
sends them to this country to rid herself of a useless 
portion of her population ? Is this right ? Certainly 
not! Yet the nation that does this, claims to take 
the lead in emancipating the African slave ! Can 
you trust such sympathy? And your Abolition 
friends claim for you privileges equal with those of 
the whites, because it is rigid ! 

Do not trust to the simple declaration of right, 
with a hope that it will be gratuitously enforced, 
when you see our mother country expatriating the 
pauper, and using our jails for her convicts! Like 
the parent, you will find the child. Can you not 
perceive that, in an overdense population, you would 
be the first to be shipped to Africa, poor and naked, 
if Africa would receive you ? 

I tell you candidly, that if yow expect national 
generosity where justice is withheld, you will be 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 211 

disappointed. You can estimate private generosity, 
and no doubt know how to appreciate it. I know 
you have had some lamentable experience, especially 
in some of our cities. This ought to enable you to 
decide at once against the argument that we have 
labour enough, and a world large enough, for our- 
selves and you. Are you not now made to suffer 
for want of employment, where you come in contact 
with a white man (it may be the newly-arrived 
immigrant) for a day's work ? Have you not been 
scattered from your most thickly inhabited quarters 
in a city, to a distance beyond the suburbs, when 
you presumed to do the work that the white man 
claimed as his right? Do you think that any rail- 
road contractor, in any free state in the Union, 
would dare to employ one thousand of you to do the 
work upon a railroad ? Would any one hundred of 
you be enabled to unite to build the houses for which 
you are allowed to carry the brick in the hod, in 
any of our free cities? Remember the hall that 
was built for the purpose of bringing you upon a 
social equality with us, and enabling you publicly 
to discuss your political rights. Has it not been 
burned to the ground? You answer "Yes" to all 
this. But is it right ? 

I tell you that you have wrongs heaped upon 
your heads daily. And daily the same question is 



212 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

reiterated, " Is it right ?" without bringing you any 
relief, or advancing you one step in what you claim 
as right. 

If I were not afraid of making my book too large, 
I would tell you all I know about how shabbily you 
are treated in regard to all your personal rights, 
even by the Abolitionist. But, as your country is a 
vast country, and as it is now in your power, with 
the knowledge you have gained by absorption in 
your journey through the wilderness, to become a 
mighty nation on the earth, it is no more than right 
that I have made a statement of facts relating 
to you and us, in order to convince you that all 
who persuade you not to go to Africa are wrong, 
and that going to Africa is going to freedom. 

I recollect that the Hon. T. H. Benton, in one of 
his speeches upon the Pacific Railroad, said that, 
somewhere up the Rocky Mountains, a guide-board 
would be placed, pointing west, but declaring that 
such was the shortest way to the east. This caused 
surprise in all who did not understand that the globe 
is round. The only difficulty between the Aboli- 
tionist and myself is, that he seems to think the 
earth a plain, as it was supposed to be in ancient 
times, when men spoke of the " four corners of the 
earth." In looking over the surface of this plain, 
the Abolitionist does not see into Africa at all ! He 



TO THE BLACK MAN". 213 

merely tells you that he catches a glimpse of the 
coast of the promontory of that continent, which 
juts out towards America, and that it is terrible 
there to behold the ravages of death ; that the soil 
of much of the coast is sterile ; that the few of 
your own people there are tyrants ; and that your 
native brethren are poor and naked. Because of all 
these things, he tells- you that you ought not to go 
to Liberia. But when I say to you that I conceive 
it to be one of the highest duties you owe yourselves 
to go and comfort your poor distressed brethren, 
many, if not all of you, will think with me. I 
know many of you who have a strong faith in that 
book which teaches this duty. You look upon the 
promises of that book with a faith as full as that 
which cheered a majority of the children of Israel in 
their journey through the wilderness — the faith 
which taught them that their deliverance would be 
accomplished in the proper time, by the Almighty 
God, who knows all things best. I know many of 
you who are full in faith, and, without murmuring, 
are patiently awaiting the time of your deliverance 
in a trustful hope. I can readily conceive how 
gladly all of you who are thus confiding would gird 
your loins for the journey to Africa, if the means I 
propose for your relief should be granted. How 
glorious will Africa then appear to your view ! How 



214 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

short will seem the hundred years I propose for your 
gradual return to the home of your fathers, when a 
definite period is fixed for the freedom of the last 
captive of your race, instead of the darkness and 
hopeless uncertainty which obscure that period now ! 
The want of fertility of soil on the coast of Africa 
will no longer be objectionable. You will soon learn 
that this is no argument against the fertility of the 
interior, any more than the want of high fertility on 
the Atlantic coast of this continent is an argument 
against the fertility of the rich interior. Nor does 
the sickness of the sea-shore of Africa furnish any 
better argument in proof of the unhealthiness of 
climate in the interior, than the sickness at Charles- 
ton and New Orleans would furnish against the 
health of the mountain regions and upland valleys 
of this noble country. All such arguments will 
appear false in the nature of things, and will no 
longer stand in the way of your interests and your 
duties. Fortunately for j^ou, the elevation of cha- 
racter to which you have attained whilst here (fiir, 
far above that which your native brethren possess), 
places your natural, just, and absolute rights in your 
own keeping, the moment you arrive upon the soil 
of your ancestry. As you cannot all go at one time, 
thousands of you, it is true, can never hope to see 
the Africa of your choice ; but even such will not 



TO TUE BLACK MAN. 215 

be the less elevated by the noble purpose and lofty 
duty which you undertake, or less useful here, in 
furthering their accomplishment. 

Let it be once understood that you desire, for 
your race, citizenship in Africa, and nowhere else, 
and those who, from age or other reasons, have no 
desire to leave America, will find aid and encourage- 
ment, liere, in the education of your children, and in 
fitting them for Africa. And, as your native 
country becomes opened more and more widely from 
year to year, your exodus, and the commerce between 
your nation and ours will as steadily increase ; and 
just in the proportion of the growth of your nation 
in commercial importance, and, consequently, in 
wealth and power, will be the justice rendered to 
your race in this country. National justice is 
rather equivocal where there is no power to resist 
oppression. 

To secure, as soon as possible, a point of great- 
ness that will enable you to enter into commercial 
treaties with the great nations of the earth (which 
would put you in a position to demand the restitu- 
tion of your brethren), it appears to me highly de- 
sirable, as a first step, that the wealthy amongst you 
should unite in sending ten or twenty of your most 
intelligent and enterprising men to explore the 
regions of the Upper Niger, to win the good will 



216 OUR "nMIOLE DUTY 

of the natives there, and, by all possible and fair 
means, to secure the territory necessary for the 
organization of a future interior state. Let them 
make a full exploration of the country in relation to 
roads, mountains and rivers, and report all matters 
of interest in connection therewith. Such a step once 
taken, a universal interest in the success of the pro- 
ject would immediately spring up. A free state 
once organized upon the head waters of the River 
Niger, African civilization and African power would 
be secured beyond a doubt ; new pursuits would be 
created, and the sources of labour would be con- 
tinually enlarged ; thus, opening the country for a 
more rapidly-increasing immigration in each succeed- 
ing year. Nor is this all. The immigration of each 
year would be more and more enlightened. Your 
wants in Africa would require men of intelligence 
and knowledge in all the departments of the arts 
and sciences. Here, they would be educated by 
your own exertions ; for it would be found that such 
as would remain here, either from choice or neces- 
sity, would, each in his proper sphere of duty, be 
efficient in many ways in forwarding the interests 
of his country, especially in the proper culture of 
the talents of his children ; and in this matter you 
would be encouraged by your real friends, to an ex- 
tent vastly beyond all present calculations. Nor is 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 217 

even this all ! This high and patriotic object, and 
your exertions in promoting it, would make you 
virtually African citizens at once. It would make 
you better men and better citizens than any citizenship 
you could acquire here. It would eventually place 
your nation in a position to demand that the African 
slave shall be emancipated. 

You now, I hope, fully understand that you possess 
a mighty power within yourselves, for the redemption 
of your fatherland from degradation ; for the re- 
lease of your enslaved brethren upon the West India 
Islands and in the United States, by and through 
African nationality; and for securing your own 
elevation, freedom, and citizenship. Patriotism 
dictates that you should make every exertion in 
your power to secure the national blessings Africa 
has in store for you. 

You understand fully, too, w^hat I propose in the 
form of national aid for your elevation as a people. 
Nor have I any doubt that, if the pervading senti- 
ment of our whole people could be made to bear 
upon the subject of your nationality, then, rather 
than that our ample lands should continue to be 
squandered so injudiciously, if not iniquitously, as 
they now are, they would be applied to the purposes 
I have pointed out, and that full justice would be 
meeted out to you at last. And now, in naming one 



218 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

liundred years as necessary for the complete accom- 
plishment of your exodus, notwithstanding the vast 
resources which we might apply to the purpose if 
we saw fit, I have been guided rather by your inte- 
rests than by our necessities; because you would 
acquire in civilization and the arts, during one 
hundred years, far more from our teachings than 
you could gain by a too rapid departure from our 
shores. 

Yet, after all that has been said of the glory you 
would acquire in assuming a national character, and 
redeeming your own land from depravity, the fact 
that at least three generations must pass away 
before a striking and lasting effect can be produced 
upon all your native brethren who would be brought 
within your influence, together with the unknown 
trials that wait upon new settlements, and the com- 
forts, such as they are, which you enjoy here, may 
tempt you to shrink from your real duty. I have 
endeavoured to define and enforce it by the most 
solid arguments ; and, before you do decide against 
this advice, let me once more entreat you to take, 
your present condition into solemn consideration. 
Then, if your are convinced, as I think you must 
be, that you really possess the power to be of service 
to Africa, do not be deterred from examining the 
condition of your fatherland, closely and carefully. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 219 

If you find your native brethren powerless for the 
defence of your nation, as were the Indians of this 
country when we landed on these shores, then let 
not their weakness turn you from them, but rather 
suffer it to draw you closer to them. And do not 
delay the commencement of your work of charity 
and glory. Remember that the ground you stand 
upon was depopulated by our sires, without mercy 
to the original owners. The motives that actuated 
England then, are now as strong as ever. England 
has recently found her w^ay into the interior of 
Africa, and it is said that she is even now building 
steamboats to navigate African rivers. Let us sup- 
pose that she should find fertile cotton regions there. 
These would be of more value to her than her 
Australian gold mines. With such a treasure in 
view, she would colonize. If she did not virtually 
enslave your people, she would seek her profit at 
the cost of your brethren as unscrupulously and as 
sternly as she now cultivates opium at the cost of 
the Hindoo. In such a case, your power for the 
formation of free states would be seriously limited, 
as long as African labour could render these cotton 
fields of value to the English manufacturer. Let 
us suppose rich gold mines to be discovered in the 
interior of Africa. Can you think for a moment 
that the white man would be kept from taking pos- 



220 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

session of them, were Africa possessed of no other 
means of resistance than such as your native 
brethren could offer? Such -discoveries are not 
improbable ; and, in the event of either gold mines 
or cotton fields, or both, being discovered, even 
Liberia — the scion of civilization and liberty, en- 
grafted upon an African stem — might wither and 
die ! All Africa might be brought under colonial 
vassalage to the white race. Your chance of estab- 
lishing a nationality of your own might then be 
forever lost ; or, if Liberia should still be saved for 
a time by the treaties she has already formed with 
European nations, her territory would remain too 
narrow for power, and too feeble for respect. Take 
your ground, and determine at once that you will 
live or die for your country ! Secure the organiza- 
tion of three or four free states, and you will not 
only be enabled to defend against all intrusion of 
the white man a country larger than ours, but you 
will also secure all that which is valuable in Africa 
— her spices, her cotton, her coffee, her gold, her 
unbounded resources of commerce and agriculture. 
Such advantages will not only assure you of a per- 
sonal independence, bat you will be, lilce other men, 
treading this earth their equals, however proud and 
boastful they may be of their national power and 
national glory ! Your liberty will be complete for 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 221 

your own good. Your example and influence will 
spread Christianity and freedom throughout the 
vast multitudes swarming between Abyssinia and 
the Atlantic, Zahara and the Cape. Your commerce 
•will spread its wings over the Red Sea, the Persian 
Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, and your influence may 
even react upon civilization, and check the distinction 
of races in the Islands of the far-off Pacific. 

But even long before these grand results can be 
accomplished, your energies will have rendered you 
happy, free, and independent. You will not be as 
you are here, reduced almost to a single occupation, 
— that of carrying the hod or working in the field. 
Your free will in your own land will give you a 
choice of occupation. You will be your own gene- 
rals, and your own statesmen; your own lawyers, and 
your own judges : you will be the laymen, and 
will choose your own preachers : you will cultivate 
your own land, and sell the surplus product of your 
labour: you will build your own ships, and you 
alone will navigate them : you will work and fatten 
your own oxen, and you will eat of the fat of the 
land : you will eat the African deer, instead of the 
American opossum : you will build your own houses 
and live in them : you will no longer be obliged to 
temper the mortar for your " bricks, without straw :" 
you will be your own tanners and your own shoe- 



222 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

makers : in short, when the inclemency of the 
weather confines you to your houses, your indoor 
occupations will keep you from starving. Such are 
the blessings within reach of your own hands, if you 
will but exert your energies to seize them. And 
what are your chances for happiness, good and com- 
fortable living, and independence here? I say — 
none ! But you say that your hopes rest with the 
efforts which the Abolitionists are making for you ! 

Attributes which dignify man ; such as honour, 
virtue, and patriotism; are judged of arbitrarily, 
according to the prejudices and peculiar social posi- 
tion of the judge : they are terms applied indefinitely 
by society. Men, in their dail}» walks, are estimated, 
not by their real motives, but by what they do, and 
still more by what they leave undone; and when 
the scrutiny is not made with unusual wisdom, they 
may receive credit for the practice of the highest 
virtues, even when their conduct is dictated by sel- 
fishness, baseness, vice, and treason. Now, you may 
consent to erect the proper standard for your duty 
in relation to African independence and Christian 
civilization, yet, for want of proper care and atten- 
tion on your part, you may fail to come up to that 
standard; and, in that case, you will be judged by 
the whole world for your actual omission of duty, 
however good may be your intentions. Let me ask 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 223 

you to examine your supposed or avowed friends 
by this same rule, lest you attribute to them a 
degree of virtue or wisdom of which either their 
real intentions, or their sins of omission may render 
them entirely unworthy. This is necessary, even 
to your own defence. 

Your relations with us, as strangers in a foreign 
land; the bondage of your brethren; your own 
serfdom; your present condition and your future 
prospects; all these things are positive facts, and 
can be judged of accordingly. You should endefir 
vour to judge of the value of your friends, not by 
their professions in advocating what is " right," but 
by the bearing of their actual conduct on these evils 
of which you so justly complain. Hence; when 
the Abolitionist proclaims upon his standard, equal 
rights in citizenship and labour, for the elevation of 
your race to social equality in this country, and 
appeals to humanity in defence of those rights, it is 
a duty and even a necessity for you to inquire into 
his acts, and examine whether his practices come up 
to the requirements of this standard. If, for exam- 
ple, he maintains that the country is large enough 
for you and us, and that there is labour enough for 
us all, it will be proper for you, before you place 
implicit confidence in his assertions, to ascertain 
whether he is really active in seeking, for your 



224 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

benefit, a proper distribution of labour, in such a 
way as to make his professions of use to you; 
whether he is seeking places for your sons in 
machine shops, carpenter shops, and stores, and in 
this way endeavouring to secure all manner of 
trades for your children. If you find that he is not 
doing so, then 3^ou must perceive at once that the 
vast extent of country we possess, and the vast 
amount of labour we have to perform, will have no 
other effect upon you than to aggravate the positive 
evils you now endure, in consequence of the want 
of proper employment during inclement weather. 
Now, there are hundreds of you who are capable of 
entering into this inquiry — hundreds who must 
fully understand that, with the increase of your 
population, the evils of the want of a proper dis- 
tribution of labour in your behalf will increase 
upon you ; especially as your experience teaches 
you, even now, that the amount of your outdoor 
labour becomes daily more limited by the rapid 
increase of our race. Thus you must see that 
misery upon misery must accumulate upon you in 
the future, and that that which is scarcely bearable 
now, will become intolerable when you number 
twenty millions in a foreign land. This must be so ; 
for we can measure the depths of degradation, vice, 
and treason which may depress a people, but we can 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 225 

never measure the height to which honour, virtue, 
and patriotism can elevate it. 

For your encouragement, stores are estabhshed 
where nothing but the product of free labour is sold, 
and it is strongly urged by some of your friends 
that England should seek new cotton fields, to 
enable her to refuse to purchase the product of slave 
labour, in order to compel the master to liberate the 
slave, by destroying the value of his labour. This 
is like many other projects for your benefit — wholly 
ineffective ! But if it could really be carried into 
effect, it would prove terribly prejudicial to your 
brethren, the slaves. The idea of starving the mas- 
ter without also starving the slave, is preposterous. 
That which seriously affects the one, must of neces- 
sity, and in like manner, affect the other, besides 
probably leading to insurrection. This irrational 
measure would seriously affect the monetary con- 
cerns of the whole country. The policy, in itself, 
is full of mischief, without having the power to 
accomplish for your race the least possible good. 
The result of such an experiment upon a large 
scale, would prove surely productive of wide-spread 
suffering and misery to your race. 

Now, your friends urge the plausible plea that 
the division of labour is ^^ your right,''' and that 
nothing but prejudice can prevent you from the 
P 



226 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

enjoyment of this right. But when they, as well 
as you, know that they do not exert themselves to 
secure this right, and have neither hope nor power 
to remove this prejudice, their pretensions can have 
no other effect than to encourage agitation, and dis- 
turb the harmony of the Union, while inducing 
society, at the same time, to regard you as the real 
cause of all its troubles. 

In the perverted use which the Abolitionist makes 
of the plea of equal rights for you, I think I can 
show that all their exertions in your behalf are in 
a great measure neutralized by their own action. 

The declaration of " equal rights " engrafted upon 
our institutions, has no legal meaning or intention, 
except as applicable to the citizens of the United 
States ; yet your Abolition friends would make this 
declaration apply to you, and the whole world 
besides. They not only contend that every foreigner 
who comes here, although he never had a right to a 
vote in the country from which he came, has that 
right rwduTcdly here, but that it is wrong to deprive 
him of his vote for the shortest possible time ; that 
it is wrong to prevent the foreigner from taking 
land 5 that he has a natural right to it ; and, in this 
way, they pervert the whole meaning of this human 
law, because, in the abstract, their view is " right " 
by a " higher law." But in contending for this as 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 227 

broadly as they do, let us inquire how it affects the 
hopes by which they flatter you into a belief of their 
friendship. The immigi'ation from Europe into this 
country for the last few years, has reached the rate 
of a thousand for each day in the year, or nearly so. 
The majority of these men have never seen men of 
your colour, until they arrive upon our shores; a 
majority of them are poor like yourselves. The 
first thing many of them aim at is labour ; in seeking 
which they are aided by societies formed for the 
purpose, among whom the humane Abolitionist per- 
haps may also be found. Labour is secured for 
them, at your expense. As it so happens that you, 
as labourers, stand directly in the way of their 
expectations, they at once take a dislike to you; 
and you know that a large portion of them hold 
absolute antipathies against you of the strongest 
kind, and are not disposed to show you any quarter. 
Yet these are the men that are encouraged hy your 
friends to come up regularly to the ballot-box in due 
course of time ; so that they are obliged to ask of 
your worst enemies the right of admitting you to 
vote, because it is "right!" This appears to me, 
however it may seem to you, very much like asking 
a man to come out of a room where he is nearly 
suffocated with smoke, whilst taking care to have 
the door secured by a secret enemy. 



228 OUR "n^HOLE duty 

If the Abolitionist would do his own voting until 
you could be brought upon the same platform with 
the foreigner, you might have some hope ; but as 
long as the foreigner has a vote and you ncnie — he 
having no regard for you, not even from habitual 
acquaintance — you can have no hopes of citizenship 
in this country. For your own benefit, too many 
guests are invited; the loaf is cut and divided 
before it reaches the second table. So that, even 
the fact that " all men are born equal," and have 
"equal rights," is of no use to you here, you not 
being citizens ; nor is it of any avail to your friends 
for your benefit, but serves their purpose merely for 
agitation, with a view to their own. Your peculiar 
relation to this country ought to render you ex- 
tremely doubtful of any proffered favours, unless 
you can clearly understand that these favours are 
predicated upon a practical basis. Let me conjure 
you, then, while you are yet few in numbers, whilst 
Africa stands open to receive you, and whilst means 
are being made ready for your transit, to remain no 
longer (I will not say traitors) indifferent to your 
country : for there is a possibility, if you should 
remain here until your population becomes so vast, 
and your burdens so much increased, as to cause 
you to cry aloud for relief in the midst of yowv 
sufferings, as did the CLildren of Israel, that the 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 220 

door of African hospitality may be closed against 
you. New developments of Africa are daily being 
made, and it is impossible to tell what those devel- 
opments may bring forth. 

The institutions of society are of the sternest 
character. Yes ! even a Christian civilization has 
no sympathy for a neglect or omission of duties. 
Charity appeals for mercy, but, alas ! too often in 
vain. Society appreciates individuals only for their 
worth, because worthy men alone constitute good 
society. Hence; even the profligate, the vicious, 
and the idle of the white race are sufferers, even 
now, as much as yourselves. 

That which I wish you to understand fully is, 
not only your individual connection and partial 
dependence upon us, but your relation, as a nation, 
to society at large and the brotherhood of men. 
When you do understand the all-important truths 
, in relation to your condition, which I have so 
frankly urged upon your attention, you will not 
regard the unmeaning appeals of demagogues, and 
kind-hearted but misguided theorists, for your eleva- 
tion here; but you will work and act like men 
to secure your elevation in your own country. You 
are perfectly familiar with the fact that the society 
of Europe, governed by a Christian civilization, 
seized upon this country, and removed from its 



I 



230 OUR T^nOLE DUTY 

path of progress the native and original proprietor. 
Whatever the mysterious designs of the all-wise 
Ruler of the Universe may have been, in permitting 
this seemingly dark deed to be done, the facts 
which have so strikingly facilitated the event are 
these : — The natives depended solely upon the 
bounties of nature; and, rather than work, they 
continually reduced their numbers within the means 
of living upon a providential supply, by warring 
upon each other. Their removal made way for an 
industrious race upon the same ground — a race with 
flourishing fields ; a race augmenting the means of 
subsistence and comfort in more than a hundred-fold, 
by the proper exercise of that intellect which God 
himself breathed into the nostrils of our first proge- 
nitor ; and thus, by the development of the hidden 
treasures of the earth for the comforts of man and the 
glory of God himself, millions upon millions of human 
beings are now made the recipients of an earthly 
happiness and a hope of Heaven, which, under the 
rule of savage tribes and savage customs, would 
never have existed. But was this "right?" Here 
is a theme for the divine and the philosopher ! K 
properly inquired into and explained, it may show 
how much good ma}'- sometimes grow out of evil. 
But, for our purpose, the reference to the fact itself 
is sufiicient. 



TO THE BLACK MAX. 231 

You see your own nation idle and degraded, and 
entirely unmindful of the duty it owes to itself and 
the God you worship ; you see society and Christian 
civilization progressing with the same sternness now 
that characterized its march three hundred years ago, 
— demanding the active exercise of the high duties 
which each man owes to his. neighbour and to his 
God, and still proclaiming honour to the man who 
will make two spears of grass grow where but one 
grew before ! And, as your knowledge of the fact that 
God has permitted one idle and degraded nation to be 
removed from the face of the earth is so complete, 
what right have you to believe that He will not 
permit the removal of another for like causes? 
Should such be the fate of your fatherland in the 
rapid progress of the white race, then, when you 
shall number millions in this land, will the dark 
side of the picture of your destiny be brought into 
view indeed ! 

"We can have no reason to entertain, for one mo- 
ment, the belief that God will desert those who are 
dutiful in obeying his will. Let us then suppose that 
the aborigines of America had numbered 500,000 of 
their race in Europe, previous to the European 
colonization of this country. Let us suppose that 
they had, then and there, possessed the same know- 
ledge of freedom and the Christian religion which 



232 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

you now enjoy ; that tliey had brought their know- 
ledge with them to this kind, as they might then 
have done; that they had established here free 
states, and enlightened their brethren ; do you not 
believe that, instead of leaving to us all the blessings 
this country affords us, and will continue to afford 
to millions of our race, they would now be in the 
fruition of all these enjo3^ments themselves ? I do ! 
Let us suppose, however, that these 500,000 Ameri- 
can Indians in Europe had refused to be instrumental 
in the redemption of their native land, and rather 
chose to remain servants in Europe. What, in this 
case, should we now think of their blindness ? 

With these friendly remarks I leave you, in the 
hope that your race will profit by them, through 
all future time. 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 233 



CONCLUSION. 



I THOUGHT I had finished, but I must hold you a 
little longer. 

While these pages have been passing through the 
press, a new territorial Government has been organ- 
ized by Congress. The "act" for this purpose has 
almost monopolized the attention of the national 
legislature at the present session ; and all that gave 
the measure special interest in discussion, and that 
will constitute its importance in application, is its 
bearing upon slavery and the puhlic lands ! 

Thus you see I have not busied myself upon a 
far-fetched or subordinate subject. It is one that 
forces itself upon our attention in every speech at 
Washington, and in every newspaper throughout the 
Republic. It has awakened an unquiet spirit that 



234 OUR WHOLE DUTY 

defies exorcism eitlier by the patriot or the wily 
politician. And I am glad it does so ! 

I have dedicated this volume to the Congress of 
the United States. It was proper for me to do so. 
But I was aware from the first, my countrj^men, 
that my final and prevailing appeal must be made to 
you. The lust of power and the coils of patronage 
will restrain the strongest sinews. You are yet 
Samsons unbound : listen, then, as to a great deliv- 
erance from a great danger ; for the evil has already 
come home to our hearths and our bosoms. 

No portion of the human family has ever borne 
such a relation to the whole, as our nation does to 
the rest of the world at this time. We hold civil 
liberty for our own happiness, but also in trust for 
all mankind ; and as we demean ourselves under its 
influence, so will the great cause be advanced or 
retarded. " Can a man take fire into his bosom and 
not be burned?" And can men trample upon the 
essentials of liberty, and yet enjoy its life and 
strength? Certainly not. Then believe me, that 
0117' action on the disposition of the Public Domain, 
and upon the institution of slavery, will determine 
the question of peace or strife for our own genera- 
tion, and stamp the inheritance of our successors 



TO THE BLACK MAN. 235 

for good or evil. If we sujBfer the public lands to 
be grasped by a few demagogues, we shall create a 
landed aristocracy. K we give these lands away to 
the vagabond and adventurer, we shall be sc[uander- 
ing the means of the world's independence. And, 
if we foster and extend slavery, we shall be found 
enacting feudalism on the soil hitherto consecrated 
by the Declaration of Independence. 

" Can such things be, 
And overcome us like a summer cloud, 
Without our special wonder ?" 

Let no one persuade you that this is mere decla- 
mation : it is stern truth, which we may now see 
and soon shall feel. 

Our grand preliminary measure is a change of 
custody for the Public Domain. I propose that we 
create a special authority for that purpose ; and I 
wish this new feature in our great experiment of 
liberty and law to be accomplished with all due 
form and order. Its most appropriate commence- 
ment will be in an act of Congress authorizing the 
election of delegates to compose a Convention which 
shall determine the particulars of a plan of opera- 
tion. But — Congress may refuse to do this ! 



236 OUR WHOLE DUTY TO THE BLACK MAN. 

It is in view of this contingency that I have 
turned back to you with these "few more last 
words." 

Should Congress not authorize this Convention ; 
should your rejoresentatives refuse this righteous 
request ; then must every township call its primitive 
meeting, and, like the " Caulkers' Club " in Boston 
of old, take this matter up as individuals, and 
agitate, and resolve, and vote, until this great 
measure be accomplished. 



THE END 



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